How to Buy a Fruitcake

What type of fruitcake is best?

The fruitcake, long maligned as a holiday punch line, deserves another look. No longer merely a conglomeration of candied fruits and sticky, sweet batters, many of today's fruitcakes are delicious, light, and not overly sweet. Monastery-style, or traditional, fruitcakes are usually drenched in alcohol and have a balanced cake-to-fruit ratio. They are typically lighter on the nuts, compared with other styles. Southern-style fruitcakes have no alcohol and tend to be heavy on the nuts, especially pecans. Contemporary fruitcakes often bear little or no resemblance to the time-honored stereotype. Many are light and filled with ingredients (such as cinnamon or dried cranberries) that are not typically associated with fruitcakes.

Here are a few fruitcake pointers to keep in mind this season:

• Buy directly from the bakery. This helps ensure that you'll receive a fresh fruitcake, not one that has been sitting in a warehouse for months. It may also be less expensive to buy direct. For example, Williams Sonoma sells Assumption Abbey fruitcake for $40 and Amazon.com sells it for $35 -- and neither price includes shipping. The abbey's price, which includes shipping, is just $31.

• Order early. To ensure holiday delivery, contact the company by early December to learn its order-cutoff date. 

• Make your own, if you can. No matter how much fruit you use, homemade fruitcake is more economical than a mail-order cake. Internet recipes for traditional fruitcakes abound. We've listed some for you in our Useful Links section.

• Ask about ingredients. Some bakeries use unexpected ingredients such as turnips, turmeric, papaya and prunes, which can trigger food allergies in some people. Dried fruits, also commonplace in fruitcakes, often contain sulfites, and these compounds can also cause physical reactions.