Slate: Embrace the fruitcake!

Sara Dickerman on Slate.com, wrote a lovely article about fruitcake--go take a look. The phrase "In fact, I'd argue that fruitcake, with its aging and its complexity, is essentially the charcuterie of the baking world" had me at hello. What a lovely idea. I want a t-shirt made with that phrase on it. I agree with Ms. Dickerman, fruitcake is the final frontier for foodies--it's time to give it its due. Dickerman makes her own fruitcake, which sounds phenomenal. I've said a few times on this blog that the home made ones just about always seem to be the best ones, and the ones she describes sound delectable.

White fruitcake recipe with applesauce in it?

I received an e-mail lately where the reader reminisces about a recipe for a white fruitcake of his/her grandma, which contained applesauce. Seeing as I don't actually make my own fruitcake, I can't help, but if anyone of my readers knows a recipe or knows where this reader might go to find one, please put your information in the comments. Thanks!

The "because it was there" review: Village Fair fruitcake

I don't often do my fruitcake shopping on a whim. But this time of year can lead to fruitcake-buying-on-a-whim, and as I perused my local supermarket, I came upon this:


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.

A good fruitcake review article

A website named Consumersearch has just updated (as of November) a very complete article comparing various reviews of fruitcake. Yes, it does include this site, but that's because, um, the article is about fruitcake, and not too many people write fruitcake reviews on the interwebs. In any case, I recommend going there because there's nice links to other articles and websites, including my buddies at Wall Street Journal--the dudes like fruitcake.

Review: Old Cavendish "Norganic" Fruitcake

The folks at Old Cavendish (whose regular fruitcake I reviewed a while back) sent me a 16-ounce "Norganic" fruitcake to review. They use organic ingredients in this cake, but, as they say on their website, and I quote, "but with one small difference. It will not have the USDA organic sticker on it because of a bureaucratic foul-up that caused us to become decertified." So there you go.

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.

All the pretty catalogs

It's that time.


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.

College of the Ozarks fruitcake

Hi - a reader alerted me to the fruitcake and other products produced by the students of College of the Ozarks located in Missouri. Interesting premise for this college: every student works to pay their way through the school. It's a Christian college that has been described as "stone cold sober" by the Princeton Review, so I'm guessing I won't find any alcohol-soaked cakes, but it looks like an interesting fruitcake to check out, so I'll add it to my list. They also offer apple butters, grits, etc.

Make your post-holiday plans now!

I was recently e-mailed regarding the Independence Fruitake Festival. This is allegedly an un-ironic celebration of the fruitcake taking place in California. I'm still a bit skeptical, but this was affirmed by Mary Roper, one of the supporters of the festival. Says Ms. Roper, "We enlist the services of our County's Superior Court Judges to judge them (our assumption is that there can be no "best" because it is so subjective), so we have different prizes like the fruitcake that traveled the farthest, the oldest, the nuttiest (determined with our nutometer), best of theme, etc.."

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?

Review: Texas Manor Fruitcake

I bought the one pound 12 ounce fruitcake from Yahoo, called the Texas Manor fruitcake, for $33.35 including shipping--the price of the fruitcake is $23.50, so $9.85 to ship from the bottom of the country to the top. Here's a photo of the tin:
Pretty simple, but I'd say rather cute, with a sort of old-timey-as-conceived-in-the-sixties feel to it.

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.

A box redesign, and some confusion about monks

I just received my first catalog since about January or maybe December. You know what that means, don't you? It's almost the time when the rest of the world launches into Fruitcake Season. For me, it's just business as usual. If anything, I've been a bit tardy--I think I've had more fruitcakes reviewed by this time in previous years.

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 . . .

Next fruitcake: Texas Manor Bakery

The next one is by a Southern food conglomerate, Ya-hoo! Baking, aka M.K. Commercial Kitchens. They make the Texas Manor fruitcake, as well as this adorable cake that I was sorely tempted to purchase. Perusing their site, they have a lot of tempting looking cakes available. I wonder if they look beautiful but taste like cardboard, like many of those lovely cakes circulating in mediocre restaurants across America? I'll use the Texas Manor fruitcake as a litmus test to find out.

Review: Hermitage Big Sur (New Camoldoli) Date Nut Cake

Oh, I'm so sad. I wanted so hard to like this cake. How could a date-nut cake be bad? But it was really not at all what I was expecting, and really didn't appeal.

Similar to the Hermitage Big Sur fruitcake, this cake comes in a very simple, eco-friendly box, quite appealing in these green times:

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not actually purchase this cake; it was generously donated. Cost, though, for the 3-pound cake is $36.00, plus shipping, so I would assume for me it would have been around $39 or so.

As the fruitcake was, this cake is large and sturdy. It's really not very pretty. I realized when reviewing these photos that I may have had the cake upside down, but I'm not sure how much better it would have looked right side up:

It's a very dark cake, and I have been remiss in not noting all of the ingredients, but as with the fruitcake, it is dipped in brandy and aged. The cake actually comes wrapped in plastic to seal in the moistness.

Since the loaf itself is not super attractive, here's a shot of a slice:

Quite a few walnuts in a dark batter, and I didn't notice large chunks of date. I guess I was mentally comparing this with the date-nut bread that I create, which has a lighter batter and lovely chunks of date and nut in it. This was different: the batter was not light, and there was an overall raisin flavor that I tasted with the fruitcake. I didn't get an overall impression of "datiness."

If given a choice, I would go with the Hermitage Big Sur fruitcake over this. This is going to the bottom of the Other list. Good ingredients, but an overall murky, non date-like flavor.