'Nature's Candy' cookbook will help you rethink fruitcake

"There's a lot of terrible candied fruit out there, unfortunately ..." says cookbook author Camilla Wynne. "It's fair that they get a bad rap, but they aren't representative of candied fruit generally." In her book Nature's Candy, Wynne guides cooks through making not-terrible candied fruit, for cakes such as the Stollen Pound Cake, above. Mickaël A. Bandassak/Appetite by Random House hide caption

For generations of Americans, making fun of fruitcake has been a holiday tradition. Even Sabrina Carpenter cannot resist piling on. "Fruitcake just makes me sick," the pop star intones in a song on her new Christmas album that happens to be called Fruitcake.

But a Canadian pastry chef and master food preserver would like us to reconsider our assumptions. Camilla Wynne is the author of a new cookbook called Nature's Candy. It's an ode to the pleasures of candying fruits — and even the occasional vegetable — and baking with them.

Wynne said she completely understands why fruitcake got stuck with such a terrible reputation.

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"I think it's because there's a lot of terrible candied fruit out there, unfortunately," she said. "Bright red or bright green glacé cherries, and the problem with those, of course, is that they don't taste like anything. It's fair that they get a bad rap, but they aren't representative of candied fruit generally."

Fruitcake is fantastic, says Wynne, if you use excellent fruit, especially fruit you candy yourself. Still, the idea of candying fruit at home seems daunting at best, at least to this NPR reporter (and enthusiastic amateur baker). "Oh, I hate that you're intimidated!" Wynne said in response to the hesitancy, "That's like the last thing I want. [But] people are. I understand that."

Candying fruit, Wynne insisted, is not any harder than boiling eggs. The technique is, basically, briefly simmering fruit in sugar water over the course of a few days.

"I'm candying a bunch of whole figs right now," she said. "Every day, it's not much more than watering your plants. They need to simmer for 10 minutes, so when I'm setting up to make dinner, I'll just turn them on and put on the timer."

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