This month, December, is National Fruit Cake Month.

Well, why not? Christmas cake, eaten in December, is probably one of the most popular "types" of fruitcake around (it's not actually a type as the ingredients can vary).

Fruitcakes are often eat at celebrations such as Christmas, as well as weddings, but celebrations of the latter type occur throughout the year whilst Christmas only happens at, well, Christmas.

Fruitcakes are pretty much what they sound like - cakes made with fruit. Fruitcakes tend to be quite rich and have candied or dried fruit (or both) and possibly nuts, spices and alcohol added to the cake mix. Some country's fruitcakes mixes are quite light, others are much richer and moist. US fruit cakes tend to be rich; in the UK they can cover a range, with Christmas cakes tending towards the rich, dark and moist end. The oldest known fruitcake recipes originated in ancient Rome.

By D Ramey Logan (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons