Cake aux fruits confits, Dimanche à Paris

Hello all! I want to tell you about a little affair I had with a French fruitcake. A friend brought me back this little slice of délicieux from Paris. She bought it at a chocolatier called Un Dimanche à Paris, which is a combination boutique-restaurant-chocolate bar, etc. Looks very chic. Here's an English review.

Let me give you the play-by-play. First, I received this lovely bag:

Extremely chic. I peeked inside, and this is what I found:

A gorgeous, elegant box, about a foot long and about 2-3 inches wide. I peeked at the side and noticed a sticker saying what was inside: cake fruits confits. In French, as many people know, cake is known as  gâteau. Cake is a specific type of cake: like a pound cake, sometimes spiced. In comparison to the more ethereal and complex gâteaux one sees in France, cake is more basic, yet still rich and delicious. Cake doesn't necessarily imply a fruitcake. However, fruits confits certainly does imply fruitcake: it means candied fruit. Yay!

The French version of fruitcake, however, is much different than the typical fruitcake I review, know, and love. Let me show you what the cake looked like when I opened the box:

Ooh la la! Very elegant. What you're seeing is a very rich, delicious pound cake with a smattering of fruit, topped with a delicious selection of candied fruit: absolutely high quality, top of the line candied fruit. Plus, my favorite lagniappe, if I may add some Cajun French to this review:

Sprinkled among the candied fruit were delicious pâtes de fruits, fruit jellies of the most delicious, intense flavor. Yummy. The one I show above is topped with a bit of chocolate showing the Un Dimanche à Paris logo.

Doing a quick Google search reveals that Dean and DeLuca offer a similar cake, and I found one at another bakery in New York. There are quite a few recipes for this around the web as well, though many of them are in French. I won't add this to the listings of fruitcakes because it is a one-off, but it was positively one of the best souvenirs I could receive from Paris!

Happy New Year from Mondo Fruitcake!

A very happy and tasty 2012 to all. I'm heading into my "I'm done with fruitcake" season soon, though I still have a stollen to enjoy. All the best to everyone in the new year!

Crikey! Suspicious Activity/National Fruitcake Day

Something horrible happened to the blog, somewhere right around Christmas, I think. Thanks to blog follower vkrn for pointing it out. I blame those fruitcake haters. Seems about right that a blog glorifying the fruitcake would be assaulted right around the holidays.

Anyway, stand proud in your love of the fruitcake. Today is National Fruitcake day! Send one to your friend/neighbor! Mention to a colleague at work how much you enjoyed X or Y fruitcake that you had over the holidays! I challenge you to do one positive fruitcake-related thing today. The world will be a better, more tolerant place for it.

Review: WHO Women Cranberry Orange Walnut Cake

I am going to have to re-think my fruitcake categories. The "Other" category needs to be redefined a bit. I was recently asked about trends in fruitcake, which I hadn't really thought about before (and shame on me for that). What I came up with in response to that question was the trend of remaking the concept of a fruitcake, normally through rejection of the standard-issue candied fruit. Instead, I'm seeing (or at least being made aware of) more cakes that contain either house-made candied fruit, in the case of the Robert Lambert cakes, or dried fruit, such as the Old Cavendish cake. Perhaps this isn't a trend at all but rather something that's been out there for a while, and I've started to discover it as I surge further into the dense forest of cakes of a fruity nature. Regardless, I think this type of fruitcake deserves a category more defined than "other." I would welcome your recommendations as to what this new category would be. Dried-fruit fruitcakes? Gastronomic fruitcakes? Locavore fruitcakes? New wave fruitcakes? Feel free to comment or jump over to the Facebook page to share your thoughts.

In any case, such a fruitcake is the WHO Women Cranberry Orange Walnut cake. Even by its name can one see that it is not defining itself as a fruitcake. Just as no one names a child Adolf anymore, it seems that the very word "fruitcake" might have negative connotations and so is being avoided. That being said, this is one of those alternative cakes that doesn't strictly evoke the flavor of a traditional fruitcake, either. Several readers had recommended this cake; when I went to their site, I didn't see anything specifically called a "fruitcake" so I contacted their customer service and was told that the Cranberry Orange Walnut was the closest thing.

The one pound cake cost $11.95; they also have 2- and 3- pound cakes. With shipping, the cost was $18.15. Here's what the cake looks like:

No hole. I'm not super keen on that (see my previous post about the importance of the hole), but really, not a huge deal. The ingredients? Fabulous: orange peel, dried cranberries, walnuts, brown sugar, flour, dates, butter, eggs, vanilla, a bit of sodium caseinate (not sure if that's part of another ingredient or added for emulsification/stabilization). What? No cherries, citron, pineapple, you say? Correct--this does not contain the standard trinity of candied fruit.

Here's a shot of the cake, sliced:

Chock-full of all the good stuff. As for the flavor: it's not a standard fruitcake. This cake reminded me of the cranberry-orange quick bread that you may be familiar with, with a bright, citric flavor from the cranberries and orange peel. However it is much denser and has a more intricate flavor due to the walnuts and dates. I'd compare this to the Bien Fait cakes in nature because of the use of dried fruit. Hmmm, maybe that new category I mentioned is dried fruit cakes (rather than candied fruit cakes).

This is a very delicious cake, and could be another good alterna-fruitcake on your holiday table. It might be even more delicious with a discreet dousing of rum or brandy. I'm going to put it up towards the top of the "Other" fruitcakes list, but beware: my rating lists may be evolving soon!