7 Ideas for Leftover Fruitcake

Are you in post-holiday mode, attempting to get your home back in order? If you are, you're probably looking at some food in the kitchen that needs to get used up, possibly even a fruitcake that someone lovingly baked for you.

If slicing and eating it as-is doesn't appeal, you can try to turn it into something new. These recipes for leftover fruitcake breathe new life into the traditional Christmas cake.

1. Fruitcake Bread Pudding: Almost any leftover bread can be made into a bread pudding, and fruitcake is no exception. The fruitcake sits overnight in an egg and milk mixture then gets baked into a pudding. And, while this recipe doesn’t call for it, I imagine that fruitcake bread pudding would be good with a whiskey sauce on top of it.
2. Fruitcake Ice Cream: Leftover fruitcake and roasted blanched almonds are mixed into softened, store-bought vanilla ice cream.
3. Fruitcake Brulee with Caramelized Blood Oranges: An interesting use of leftover fruitcake — here it gets diced up and added to crème brulee.
4. Fruitcake Pops: Crumble up that fruitcake, mix with some frosting to bind it together, and turn it into chocolate-covered cake pops.
5. Fruitcake Trifle: Cubes of fruitcake are drizzled with apricot brandy and layered with a homemade custard, pecans and whipped cream.
6. Chocolate Fondue: Cut the fruitcake into cubes for a chocolate fondue dipper.
7. Fruitcake French Toast: Dipped in eggnog instead of milk, this recipe uses up holiday leftovers.