I've learned to love a lot of foods in my time. Fruit cake isn't one of them.

I used to think I would grow to like fruit cake.

Adults seemed to like these Christmas cakes and my mum's fruit cake and Christmas pudding recipes were the stuff of legend among her friends and our extended family.

Always a fan of cooking, I remember stirring the giant pot of cake batter on the stove when my mum was doing her Christmas baking. I loved the taste of the cake mix and used to pick the Glace cherries out and eat them when she wasn't looking. But then she would add an ingredient I've never been able to get past.

Tamara West Mince pies are not on the favourite list too.

Fruit peel.

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Look, I've learned to love a lot of foods in my time: capsicum, dark chocolate and even coriander has moved from the naughty to the nice list.

But never that bitter, rubbery ingredient that seems to get added to every Christmas dessert.

Because of it, I hate fruit cake. Christmas pudding is also gross, and I find fruit mince pies inedible.

This hatred of Christmas desserts also extends to the Italian Christmas bread panettone, thanks to the presence of fruit peel.

I hate fruit peel (and therefore fruit cake) so much I can't even grin, bear it and just eat a slice to make relatives happy.

As someone rightfully pointed out to me this week, lemon zest (or the zest of any other citrus) is completely different. Finely grated, the zest has none of that pithy bitterness that peel does, and lacks the awful texture. It simply adds a lemon-y or orange-y flavour to whatever dish it's added to.

Fruit peel, on the other hand, is the rubbish bit of a citrus fruit. It has the texture of a primary school eraser and the bitterness of decaf coffee.

Fruit peel isn't the only reason I hate these Christmas cakes - I don't believe sultanas or currants belong in food either - but at least a fruit mince pie without fruit peel is bearable. Just.

And why do we insist, as people who live in a warm country, on eating a stodgy, overly-rich cake at Christmas time? There are so many other great desserts that are better suited like pavlova, peach tart, any type of ice cream of sorbet, or even just cherries that keeping fruit cake on the Christmas menu seems silly.

I remain one of the only people in my family to hate fruit cake and panettone so I'm afraid it will be at many Christmas lunches to come. But I can guarantee you will never find me eating it.