20 December 2009
Slate: Embrace the fruitcake!
16 December 2009
White fruitcake recipe with applesauce in it?
12 December 2009
The "because it was there" review: Village Fair fruitcake

Well, what the heck, I review fruitcakes, let's take a look at the one that's just laying there, waiting to be purchased, right? This fruitcake, 16 ounces of it, cost me $4.99, plus I think I got some extra savings on it through the grocery store. Obviously, no shipping.
When I googled "Village Fair fruitcake," I was pointed directly to the website of Benson's Bakery, which makes me happy, as this was one of the fruitcakes I had on my list to review. Although this is a southern bakery (hailing from Bogart, Georgia), the quality of this cake places it decidedly into the Mass-Produced category.
Here's a photo of the fruitcake itself, in all of its pre-cut glory:
The fruits and nuts include golden raisins, cherries, orange peel, pineapple, and (interestingly) dehydrated papaya, and the nuts include pecan and walnut pieces. All of this is cradled, however, in a batter filled with ingredients typical of a mass-produced product: corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and preservatives.The flavor and texture is nothing fabulous. The batter is more like a pound cake batter than other cakes I've tried. The fruits and nuts are cut fairly small, to match the smallness of the cake, but it's a bit dry. Also, I think it's the dried papaya that adds an almost a gristly texture to the cake.
So, once again, this is a cake that makes me understand why so many people dislike fruitcake. As for where it should go on the rating scale . . . hmmm, I'll put it between Turnip 1 and 2 because of the interesting collection of fruit and absence of vegetables.
04 December 2009
A good fruitcake review article
27 November 2009
Review: Old Cavendish "Norganic" Fruitcake
Here's a photo of the fruitcake (you know how I am with photos, I apologize for the ugliness of it; still, in my defense, this is not the most beautiful fruitcake):
And here's a photo of the ingredients:
So as I had mentioned in my previous review, this fruitcake is different from many of the "standard" fruitcakes (which is why it's in my Other category) for its use of dried fruit rather than candied fruit. This absolutely gives it a different flavor from other fruitcakes made with the candied fruit--"candied" being the operative word here. Most fruitcakes are very, very sweet because of the candied fruit, and this one, while certainly sweet, does not have the cloying sweetness that (some of us like but) may turn some people off.This is quite a scrumptious cake, and as I had mentioned in my previous post, I'd call it a "gateway" fruitcake, similar to a "gateway" drug, indicated if you fruitcake-lovers want to start getting friends and loved ones hooked on fruitcake. In general constitution, it is similar to other fruitcakes: batter, fruit, nuts, liqueur. But the dried fruit gives it a more fresh, quick-bread type flavor. The cashew nuts in particular I find very interesting--they certainly give this cake a different mouth-feel, being a bit softer than a pecan or walnut. I have a special fondness for the elegant flavor of a date, and this cake includes them, as well. And just as I enjoy dates in my baking, I dislike prunes, and this cake, in contrast to their non-organic cake, is bereft of them.
I took at look at my previous review, and I'd say that in general what I said there holds true. This is a well-balanced, fresh-tasting, all natural cake that I could see being pulled out for Christmas breakfast due to its general quick-bread like flavor. The added benefit to this cake, of course, is that you can bring your organic foodie friends into the fruitcake fold.
22 November 2009
All the pretty catalogs
Aren't they pretty? I've gotten at least one catalog from each of the companies I've purchase fruitcake from. Roughly clockwise from lower left, Holy Cross abbey, Collin Street (just part of the big sheaf of papers they sent me), a very low-budget Assumption abbey, the Sisters Sweet Shoppe in Columbus (aka Grandma's bake shoppe), Southern Supreme, and Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. Not showing is the Wisconsin Cheeseman one I received after this photo was taken. And I'm sure I received a couple Gethsemani, but must have tossed those. I do dearly love going through catalogs. Everything seems so new and exciting!! I have to say I would still consider buying something from the Wisconsin Cheeseman, as long as its not fruitcake. They didn't seem to be plugging it too much--only had one meager entry about the fruitcake, and another entry about some fruitcake cookies. But the cheeses look pretty good--I guess I've lived close enough to Wisconsin for long enough that I can always appreciate a big tub of cheese spread.
14 November 2009
College of the Ozarks fruitcake
07 November 2009
Make your post-holiday plans now!
The festival is held in January this year (January 23, to be exact) to avoid all the crush of holiday festivities and so that people can bring their leftover fruitcakes to the festival.
What I like best are these crazy, random themes for this and previous festivals. This year's is "Food of the Pharoahs." Ms. Roper adds (and this is a sentence you don't hear too often), "Hopefully we'll have the pyramid done by January."
Has anybody else been? Heard of it?
20 October 2009
Review: Texas Manor Fruitcake
The cake is just one of the cutest ones I've seen in a while:
A really happy-looking cake, I'd say. The cake itself is light yellow, having no molasses, brown sugar or booze in it. First ingredient? My un-favorite: raisins. However, although you can definitely taste them, they aren't quite as insufferable as I've had in other cakes. The rest of the ingredients are not too bad for a mass-produced: yes, there are colorings (what cake with preserved fruit doesn't have 'em), invert sugar, and margarine, not butter, but this is the first cake I've seen that contains buttermilk. The only fruits are three: raisins, glacéed pineapples and glacéed cherries. The nuts: pecans and walnuts.
These glacéed cherries are quite good: definitely a better quality than most, though as you can see, if you're not into those three fruits, this is not the cake for you. Because of the fruit combo, this cake tastes a bit like a pineapple upside-down cake--it's got that sweet, caramelly taste, and I'm sure the raisins only enhance that flavor. The cake to fruit ratio is quite good, with a bit of batter in there that you can taste for itself, not just as something that holds the fruit together.
Sigh. Have I become a softy? Have I, alas, just tasted too many fruitcakes, and am starting to cut some a break? Or were the mass-produced fruitcakes I had tried earlier really that bad? Because this one was really not that bad. Maybe as I try other fruitcakes, I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt. After all, last year's Grandma's fruitcake did not light up any of my lights, but my family liked it.
I guess I can finally admit that this sort of generic fruitcake does have a place in the fruitcake spectrum. Maybe after all of these years, I've found a few mass-produced fruitcakes that are not excruciatingly bad. This one was a pretty good tasting, rather sweet, standard fruitcake. Would I buy it again? Probably not: if I were to buy any fruitcakes again, they would probably be from the smaller fruitcake bakeries, like any of the monasteries and maybe even the Southern-style ones, before I'd go to one of these. I prefer to support something artisanally made, or family-made, rather than support Big Bakery.
That being said, I don't think I'm qualified to say who's a big bakery or not. Who's to say that Georgia fruitcake is not as big or bigger than Yahoo? And frankly, I've not seen any of the monastery fruitcake operations. So I have to use the quality of ingredients as a guide to what I choose.
Still, I'm going to put this one on the top of the mass-produced. Its ingredients were not terribly horrible, it had a tastefully cute tin, and the flavor was, well, it was okay--I won't be throwing this one away. The quality of the glacéed cherries certainly redeems it.
And I may be back for this cake. I just can't get over its cuteness.
17 September 2009
A box redesign, and some confusion about monks
In any case, I've received my Texas Manor fruitcake, which I will review soon, but I wanted to report on the catalog I just got. It's from Holy Spirit Monastery, and it looks like they did a redesign on their packaging. I don't think I got one of their catalogs last year (I tried their cake the first time at the end of last year, and did an online purchase), but it's very nice indeed. They have a few different fruitcake size options, and also sell other items, like fudge, including one that I would love to try: "Southern Touch," which contains peaches, pecans and a touch of peach brandy....yum. In any case, if you look at my review of this cake, previously they had a rather austere but real tin. I'm just checking the catalog right now and they might have ditched the tin altogether: they say that the round cake as well as the loaf are "packed in attractive gift boxes." They are actually pretty cute boxes, but it doesn't look like they've updated their website to match their catalog, so I can't show them to you.
Here's what's weird, though: the original tin I got last December had a sticker on it proclaiming the cake to be from "Brother Basil's kitchen." When you go to the website, there is copy there describing a Brother Patrick as their master fruitcake-baker. However, my catalog disagrees, claiming that indeed Brother Augustine is the master fruitcake-maker. So who is it?
Frankly, Ragtime Cowboy Joe (yeah, I don't know him, either) could make my fruitcake--I don't care, as long as it's good. Most monasteries don't really say who, in particular, makes their cakes. It's kind of funny that Holy Spirit is trying to put a human edge on this and just succeeds in confusing me.
It don't matter. This catalog looks darn good, and also includes some pretty calendars if you're into contemplative abbey photos, as well as other foodstuffs, like apple butter and some Trappist coffee from Venezuela. I think the catalog contains a much nicer presentation of their products than their website. If you're into fruitcake, you may want to request one. I'm thinkin' I need a bit of a Southern Touch to my holiday season . . .