I had a recipe that used real fruit instead of that nasty citron and dyed candied yukky stuff. It was so good. Like trail mix in a cake almost.
Purely because I am very ignorant, please tell me what your Christmas cakes are made of in the US? Here in the UK it is traditional to have a very rich fruit cake, made two or three months before Christmas, packed with dried fruit (and brandy), “fed” with more brandy while it matures, and then covered with marzipan (almond paste) and iced.
Okay, now, here we go. Maybe the difference is the term “Christmas Cake”. In the States, what you are describing pretty much sums up what we call “fruitcake”, and the usual association for (Yank-termed) fruitcake is, almost overwhelmingly, Christmastime. In my experience the Yank version typically foregos the marzipan and icing. It’s very dense.
If it’s a basic cake with fruit scattered in it, I don’t know what we call it, unless it’s maybe “pineapple cake” or “cherry cake” or the like. In usual terms our fruitcake is your Christmas cake.
The classic recipe I should follow:
•1 C water
•1 C sugar
•4 large eggs
•2 C dried fruit
•1 tsp. baking soda
•1 tsp. salt
•1 C brown sugar
•lemon juice
•nuts
•1 FULL bottle of your favorite whisky (single malts are best)
Sample the whisky to check for quality. Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again to be sure that it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 C of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add 1 tsp sugar and beat again. Make sure the whisky is still OK. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Break two legs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the whisky to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt. Or something. Who cares. Check the whisky. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.
Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check the whisky again. Go to bed.
Who likes fruitcake anyway?
If you’re making these for the holidays, you’d better get moving! They need to age, you know.
You are confused, dear. You are thinking of cake with fruit–something to serve with tea.
They are thinking of something to which the term “really lovely” is less appropriate than “really useful.”
It’s a “cake” in the sense that it is a solid block. A stone-like mass. A brick. Which explains why it’s “really useful.”
The brandy is necessary to keep mold at bay while it’s negotiating its long and remarkable life as a storage method for dried fruit from one year to the next. And the next.
“Lambchop”
You are confused, dear.
Confused yes always, how did you know
Your dear NO That’s a little familiar, you don’t even know me
You are thinking of cake with fruit–something to serve with tea.
Yes I’ll give you that
They are thinking of something to which the term “really lovely” is less appropriate than “really useful.”
Have you tried my cooking?
It’s a “cake” in the sense that it is a solid block. A stone-like mass. A brick. Which explains why it’s “really useful.”
Now that’s just downright cheeky 
The brandy is necessary to keep mold at bay while it’s negotiating its long and remarkable life as a storage method for dried fruit from one year to the next. And the next.
It shouldn’t last from one year to the next if it was as nice as you say
Now if you don’t stop being cheeky I will use your own cutlass on you
She didn’t say that it was nice, nor did anyone else in this thread. If you don’t believe me, check it out. And that aspect of fruitcake is another subject altogether.
Have you never then tried the “Christmas cake” of your own British tradition that devondancer mentioned? You’d know it’s the same thing, essentially, if you’d really been reading the posts; something tells me you may not have done so.
As for folks on either side of The Pond calling each other confused, well…I don’t know if that’s ever gonna change. A language seemingly in common, and all that.
OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH Have we been eating grumpy pie?
Why, do I “sound” grumpy to you?
You never did say if you know about British-style Christmas cake.
One method I read about long ago is to:
1.) Punch holes from top to bottom with a skewer.
2.) Pour brandy or rum over it until it is saturated.
3.) Dust it liberally with powdered sugar.
3.) Wrap tightly in cheesecloth and put the cake in a tin.
4.) Age for several years. 
With best regards.
Stephen
Rum for me, I think. Probably dark rum.
I don’t know if I’d do the “several years” bit, though.
One of the more interesting recipes I recall having read involved a large crock, fruit (peaches? cherries?), and brandy. Seems as though some of that would be good in a fruit cake.
I was thinking about “rich” as applied to fruitcake. It doesn’t seem to be quite the word. Rich implies butter and eggs. Your average fruitcake is more along the lines of “cloyingly sweet.”
Here is a holiday Rorschach . . . what does THIS bring to mind?
And who would willingly purchase TEN ONE-POUND BLOCKS of fruitcake? (For just $57.95!)
I have a clear memory of near-panic setting in as the family spotted a brick-shaped, leaden gift under the tree.
Dad, suspiciously: “Who sent that?”
Mom: “The Smiths.”
D: “It’s a fruitcake.”
M: “Oh, just open it. You don’t know it’s a fruitcake.”
D: “No! If we leave it in the paper, we can give it away again.”
M: “Well, be sure it’s a fruitcake.”
D: “WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE? Nothing else comes in that size, that shape, and that WEIGHT!”
M: “I don’t know . . . but you’d best be sure. You don’t want to give it away and it be something embarrassing.”
D: “It’s a fruitcake . . . how much more embarrassing can it be!”
M. “Well, maybe we’d better not give it away. We don’t want that kind of reputation.”
D, sighing heavily, rips off the paper. “See, I told you!”
Kids: “Ewwwwwww!”
M: “You tore the plastic. Now we’ll have to eat it.”
D: “Why?”
M: “It’s a sin to waste food.”
D. “Surely they make exceptions for fruitcake.”
M: “I don’t think so.”
Kids: “EWWWWWWW!”
And in the summer, driving through Georgia . . . . the billboard announces only 50 miles to Claxton . . . “EWWWWWW!” . . . 40 miles to Claxton . . . “EWWWWWW!” . . . 30 miles to Claxton . . . “EWWWWWW!” . . . 20 miles to Claxton . . . “EWWWWWw!” . . . and on and on until finally the dread location appears . . . “EEEEK! Oh! EWWWW! There it is! Yech! Gack! Jeez! It even smells like fruitcake here! Bleah!”
This replays in my mind every time I see fruitcake.
And then there were the years when people were passing around the same fruitcake from year to year. We marked it. We knew.
LOL LOL LOL 
That reminds me of the time my sister told her husbands aunt that she had worked all morning on a birthday cake for her. My sister took the cake out of the tupperware, they sang happy birthday. The aunt cut the cake, and lol there was the cardboard under it from the bakery. LOL LOL
Personally, I think that marzipan would improve fruitcake immensely.
Come to think of it, forget the fruitcake. Just send me the marzipan.
Why don’t we use marzipan here in the States? The other cultures get all the good sweets! [we need a pouty smiley]
Redwolf
Many of us do. I’ve got several tubes in the fridge right this moment.
I mean our commercial bakers. I don’t do my own baking. I can’t. Flour hates me.
Redwolf
Lambchop, believe it or not, I love those Claxton fruit cakes. I really do. I’m the only one I know who does though…actually, I’d love to have one right now to gnaw on. I can just taste it…
My mom always use to make fruit cake and it was one of the few things that I liked to help her cook. She always put in a lot of the candied cherries, red and green, pineapple, and raisins.
I’ve never made one myself, but I have many times made a cake called a Scotch Black Bun that is tasty. It has mostly currants and raisins that are soaked first, then just enough batter to hold them together and the only liquid used is scotch. It’s baked in a pastry crust, top and bottom. I’d always wrap it up in cloth, saturate the cloth with scotch, then stick it in the refrigerator to age. Once a week or so, douse it with more scotch. It has to be made early, say early Nov to be properly aged by Christmas. That is yummy.
My mother in law use to make the best cake of all and it was a …prune cake! of all things. Sounds awful, but gosh it was good. She always made some kind of sugary stuff that she drizzled over it after it had baked. No one knows how to make it now that she’s gone. 
EWWWWWWWW!
I have many times made a cake called a Scotch Black Bun that is tasty.
Why’s it black? Black food would worry me.
My mother in law use to make the best cake of all and it was a …prune cake! of all things. Sounds awful, but gosh it was good. She always made some kind of sugary stuff that she drizzled over it after it had baked. No one knows how to make it now that she’s gone. >
Look something like this?
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/12/make-this-cake-today-trust-me/
Why YES it did! Good old prune cake! The only difference being that she always baked them in a tube pan. I wish someone in the family had learned her secret to the thing. We have the recipe but it just isn’t the same.
It’s not really black, just the cake part is dark because of the ingredients.
I bet you don’t like black licorice…yummy, now I want some of this..
I’m so totally going to make that prune cake! Yum!
It looks a little like sticky toffee pudding:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cooking-live/english-sticky-toffee-pudding-recipe/index.html
Redwolf