Fruitcakes That Don't Suck

"Who likes fruitcake?" people asked when the topic of Christmas desserts came up here at the KitchenDaily office. "My mom!" was our photo editor Liz Hait's response. "Mine too!" I said. My mother looks forward to her Christmas fruitcake every year (she pulls the tin out every day after dinner during the Christmas season -- and after some lunches when she's feeling "naughty"). So we decided that instead of holding a taste test with editors, we'd go to the real experts when it comes to that loved or loathed dried fruit and nut concoction: We ordered two sets of 11 different mail-order fruitcakes -- from amazon.com, Williams-Sonoma and direct from several monasteries and other sources -- and held a mom taste-off to determine who makes best fruitcake available in the United States.