Fruitcake. The Joke of Americans and the Glory of Weddings in the United Kingdom?

Say the word 'fruitcake' in the United States and you are bound to get a smirk or guffaw without even saying more. If you happen to have a piece in hand you might hear 'ewww' or 'makes a great door stop!'. We Americans may have embraced fruitcake a hundred or more years ago, but it's become the butt of jokes over the past 50 years and it's certainly not in fashion to eat or make a cake that no one wants to touch.

But apparently, our friends in the UK don't feel the same way. As a matter of fact, it's a crowning glory on wedding cakes!

Reading the news this weekend and being a fan of British media, I saw an article that informs it's reportedly going to be part of Kate Middleton and Prince William's wedding cake.

If a Prince and his bride are choosing fruitcake for their wedding cake, you have to believe their country must not snicker at the dessert as we do; but I also suspect it's now going to become 'the' cake to have at any wedding in the United Kingdom over the next two years and perhaps, maybe (?) it's popularity might slowly spread back the United States.

Having never had a European version of the dessert but having seen different images and recipes for it I do believe our Americanized version of the cake is different than the European version and thus; the discrepancy arises.   The British version does seem a bit more cake like than our doorstop variety so if and when the fad of fruitcakes at weddings crosses to American borders, I hope the bakers of the United States use a more 'cake' like fruitcake than the heavy version typically given at our Christmas holidays.