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Betcha Can't Write Just One Nutty Fruitcake Haiku

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By JEFF HOUCK | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 27, 2007

Hard to believe it has been 56 years since the recipe for Mrs. Harvey's White Fruitcake appeared in The Tampa Tribune

Time flies when you're passing on holiday baked goods traditions.

Every year on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, we run the recipe for Lucille Harvey's white fruitcake. People so love this cake, which actually took second place in a contest the newspaper sponsored back then, that readers still call throughout the year in search of the recipe. This year, the calls started in July.

Last year, we celebrated the 55th anniversary of its publication with a fruitcake-themed haiku contest. Hundreds of entries flooded our inbox. Turns out that haiku is the potato chip of poetry. No one can write just one.

Art Bartsch, a master of fruit technology at The Swiss Colony mail-order food business, judged last year's contest for us and chose Ona Weber of Zephyrhills as the winner for this ditty:

Fruitcakes are nutty

Is much nuttier.

Weber had never written a haiku poem before. She met the marital fruitcake in question — her husband, Ron — while both were working at a correctional facility.

"We met in prison," she wrote at the time. "Go figure."

The contest was such a success that we've decided to go for another round. Unlike most fruitcake, you can always go for another helping of haiku.

We want you to write a haiku about fruitcake and send it to us.

A refresher: Haiku is a Japanese form of three-line poetry in which the first line has five phonetic syllables, followed by a second line with seven syllables and a third line with another five syllables.

By all means, have fun with it. Take this example from last year written by Kay Stevens of Tampa:

How much cake can a

Wants to bake a cake?

It's just that simple. Even better, we'll bestow fruitcake-related prizes on those who pen the best submissions.

You can e-mail submissions to jhouck@tampatrib.com or mail them to Fruitcake Haiku, c/o Flavor, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606. Deadline is Dec. 11.

MRS. HARVEY'S WHITE FRUITCAKE

4 cups shelled pecans

1 pound candied cherries

1 pound candied pineapple

13/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 pound butter

1 cup sugar

5 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 to 2 ounces vanilla extract

1/2 to 2 ounces lemon extract

Chop nuts and fruit into medium-size pieces; dredge with 1/4 cup of flour. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Sift together remaining flour and baking powder; fold into butter-egg mixture. Stir in vanilla and lemon extracts. Blend in fruit and nuts.

Grease a 10-inch tube pan.

Line with parchment, wax paper or foil; grease again. Pour batter into prepared pan or pans. Place in cold oven and bake 21/2 to 3 hours in tube pan or 2 hours in 81/2-by-41/2-inch loaf pans at 250 degrees. Check cake 1 hour before done and again in 30 minutes. When done, remove from oven; cool in pans or cake rack.

Makes 5 pounds of fruitcake.

Note: In 41/2-by-21/2-by-11/2-inch (baby) loaf pans, bake cakes about 1 hour. For 1-pound cakes in 2-pound coffee cans, bake about 2 hours. In 5-ounce custard cups, bake about 1 hour. And in ungreased foil bonbon cups, bake about 30 minutes.

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