By: Marlene Oxender
My ten-year-old grandson Deano recently walked past my desk while I was finishing a story about fruitcakes. I’d wondered if he’d ever tried a bite of fruitcake, so I asked him if he knew what a fruitcake is.
He looked at me with a serious face and answered, “I imagine it’s a cake. Made out of fruit.” The two of us looked at each other for a few seconds. Then we laughed. And laughed some more.
I’d meant to ask him if he’d ever taken a bite of fruitcake, but I phrased the question a little differently and ended up with an answer nearly anyone would have come up with.
Deano didn’t know I was asking about the traditional fruitcake served at Christmastime, so I explained what a fruitcake is.
We went on to discuss the kind of cakes made of fruit. Initially the only one I could think of was cheesecake because I serve it with a topping of fresh mixed berries.
The two of us spent a few minutes online looking at pictures of cakes. We decided that many cakes sound inviting simply because of their beautiful names. Adding cherries to a chocolate cake makes it a Black Forest Cake.
We found recipes for a Banana Split Cake, Strawberry Dream Cake, Peach Streusel Cake, Blackberry Chocolate Cake, Blueberry Cream Coffee Cake, and a Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Cake.
And if it’s a piece of citrus, it can be baked into a cake. There’s the Lemon Chiffon Cake, Chocolate Clementine Cake, and Perfected Orange Bundt Cake. Those who like Key Lime Pie will be glad to know about the cake version.
The Grapefruit Cake was the one that caught my attention, and I decided it’s easy to spend a lot of time on the internet reading about things that are new to us.
If a Triple Layer Mango Dragon Fruit Cake is being served, you’re likely in a restaurant. Maybe you’re at a resort where there’s a wonderful buffet with papayas and melons that have been carved into cakes.
It sometimes takes the cold of winter before we’re in the mood to turn on the oven and make a homemade dessert. My mother always baked a cake on the day of our birthday. Things were simple.
She used a boxed cake mix and decorated the cakes with candles. Thank goodness someone lined us up for photos with our cake in front of us and our friends, cousins, and siblings surrounding us.
My family recently discovered the Cranberry Christmas Cake – one we’ll bake again during the holidays.
Since tomatoes are a fruit, I knew I’d likely find recipes for desserts made out of tomatoes. Most of us are familiar with Green Tomato Pie but may be surprised to learn that nearly every variety of tomato has been used as an ingredient in a baked cake. Even cherry tomatoes.
Botanically speaking, pumpkins and avocadoes are fruits. The olive. The cucumber. The pickle. Winter squash. Summer squash. Eggplant. Pomegranates and more – all fruits, and all may be made into cakes.
My friends with grapevines in their back yard have likely made plenty of jellies and jams, but now I’d like to know if they’ve ever made a cake out of grapes.
Back in the 80s, my sister Marcia often made a Plum Cake that called for two small jars of plum baby food. She baked it in a Bundt cake pan and sprinkled it with powdered sugar. And the Apple Cake recipe my family still uses was published in The Edgerton Earth recipe column years ago.
I recently came across a recipe for Chocolate Coconut Cake, and I wondered how coconut is categorized. I found an article that explains it’s a fruit; but loosely speaking, coconut can be classified as a fruit, a nut, and a seed.
The article reminded me of a few words my father had written about his time in the Army back in the 1940s. In 1967, he wrote his memoirs, and this was the memory he’d penned about the coconut trees:
On May 18th we arrived in Milne Bay in New Guinea. I can still remember it was raining hard when we left ship.
Of course the natives were around and we were told if we would give them a penny or any coin they would shimmy up a tall palm tree and get us a fresh coconut. A lot of fun to see, but we were also ordered not to eat a lot of fresh coconut because we would get sick.
After watching an online video of a strong, young male shimmying up a coconut tree, it made me think children everywhere would love the experience of climbing a tree and picking their own coconuts.
Although my newspaper columns are just stories, I’ve found there’s a bit of investigative journalism involved. For the good of the cause, I must do things like bake cakes. And my grandchildren are usually willing to help.
Life if full of things to do. Cakes to bake. Games to play. Vacations to take. Stories to write. Trees to climb.
For those of us who don’t always ask our questions the right way, we’ve made smart people out of those around us who have to figure out what we’re talking about.
And if ever we’re stumped during a game of Jeopardy with a question such as “A cake made of fruit,” the answer is simply: “Do you know what a fruitcake is?”
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Marlene Oxender is a writer, speaker, and author. She writes about growing up in the small town of Edgerton, her ten siblings, the memorabilia in her parents’ estate, and her late younger brother, Stevie Kimpel, who was born with Down syndrome. Her two recently published books, Picket Fences and Stevie, are available on Amazon. Marlene can be reached at mpoxender@gmail.com
