Mondo Fruitcake

Happy New Year from Mondo Fruitcake!

2011-12-31T09:04:00.001-06:00

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

2011-12-27T12:25:00.002-06:00

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

2011-12-17T13:38:00.000-06:00

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!

Alabama Fruitcake Redux

2011-12-09T16:18:00.001-06:00

Hello all, just heard from Joseph, a dedicated blog reader who's been eating his way through the fruitcakes I've rated. He strongly recommends the Alabama fruitcake I had referred to in a previous post. Says Joseph, "I loved this cake. It is slightly on the sweet side but it was very moist and soft. It had a good balance of fruit and pecans to cake and the pecans and fruits were of good quality."

Review: Sunnyland Farms Dark and Light Fruitcakes

2011-12-06T10:28:00.001-06:00

The more I taste fruitcakes from Georgia, the more I like them. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I bought a set of fruitcakes, the light and dark fruitcake, from Sunnyland Farms. Sunnyland Farm's main business is pecans, so although I was expecting the fruitcakes to have pecans in them, I wasn't expecting anything fabulous. But these are pretty darn good fruitcakes.

I was sent the catalog after my order, something I usually don't like because a) I've already bought what I want, why have a catalog, and b) it's a waste of paper and postage. But I actually enjoyed the Sunnyland Farms one, and read it from cover to cover--at least the bottom of each page, which contained a running commentary of things about the company as well as descriptions of many of the workers there, which was really heartwarming. How nice to be featured in your company's catalog!

Back to the fruitcakes. I bought the fruitcake combo, containing two 1 pound, 7 ounce loaves, one each of the dark and light fruitcake, both containing pecans. All of Sunnyland Farm's prices contain shipping, so I paid (and you would pay) $39.70 for the home box--unadorned fruitcakes. They also have a gold-foil gift box available for $43.20.

Neither of the cakes contain booze, but there's enough flavor in each of them where I didn't really miss it. Yup, that's me, the "I love booze in fruitcakes" woman, saying that. I think the secret ingredient in both that added a bit more flavor was juice: orange juice in the light, grape juice in the dark. Let me break them down a bit.

The dark fruitcake contains brown sugar and molasses, dates, dark raisins, your usual candied fruit trinity of cherries, pineapple, and citron, and a dash of lemon peel. Here's a cake where I actually didn't mind the raisins! They were well integrated into the cake, and they weren't terribly dry or overpowering in their raisiny-ness. Perhaps they're macerated in the grape juice? I'll see if I can find out. I think the juice definitely adds another element to the cake. The brown sugar and molasses gave this cake a truly dark flavor, and I always enjoy the extra complexity dates give to the mix. The thing that makes the flavor of this cake distinctive, however, are the spices: cinnamon and cloves. Cinnamon! I don't think I've seen cinnamon in a cake since the Harry & David one.

The light fruitcake shares the same fruit mixture, but replaces the brown sugar and molasses with regular sugar, and golden raisins instead of dark. There are no spices, but there is orange juice, and I think that addition gives the cake a bright, distinct flavor. It's a very happy looking cake, too, as evidenced by the slices below (light fruitcake on top):

Both fruitcakes share what I feel is a good balance between cake and fruit and nuts. There is enough space between the ingredients where you can taste the cake, and it has a nice, cake-like texture, not gooey.

These were really nice cakes. Since my top Southern style cake, Mary of Puddin Hill, is really no longer available (see the update and comments here), I'm going to move it to the bottom of the list, then move Georgia/Womble's up and these right below. Georgia up, Texas down.

Bakermaid - for high end department store fruitcakes

2011-12-04T14:29:00.002-06:00

Thought this was interesting. A reader had asked about a fruitcake assortment that she had loved. While perusing my list of fruitcake links (you can see them over on my Mondo Fruitcake stack) I came upon one for a wholesale company, Bakermaid. They don't provide a whole lot of detail, as they are wholesale, but they do mention a few of the stores that they bake for. So if there's a particular department store cake you love, but can't find, maybe this can help.

Review: Eilenberger Bakery Texas Pecan cake

2011-11-30T12:59:00.001-06:00

Hello, all. OK, I've gotten over my grumpiness and have decided to finally review this cake. In case you're wondering why I'm grumpy, it's because I ordered the Texas Pecan cake, not the fruitcake, from Eilenberger. So what you're getting here is a review of a pecan cake, not a fruitcake. And that is exactly what I got.

I bought the 1.5 pound Texas Pecan cake, which cost $23.95 plus shipping. Shipping was $7.50 to the middle of the country, so the total was $31.45. As I had previously posted, it's a very cute box--I'm a sucker for dogwood blossoms:

Very cute. Here's a photo of the cake, done in the style that I can only call "MondoFruitcake Ugly:"

Lots and lots of pecans. And some fruit. You would have thought at this point, noting how many pecans there were, that I would have thought to myself, "gee, where's the fruit in this fruitcake?" I even went so far as to TAKE A PHOTO OF THE INGREDIENTS, included herewith, without noticing the name:

Or maybe I was distracted by this:

This picture implies that Eilenberger has been around awhile, and indeed they have been around since 1898, per their website. Their website also mentions that they are "the oldest bakery in Texas still operating in its original location." And that's saying something, considering all of the fruitcake companies based in Texas. I actually think it's really cute.
In my defense, most Southern style fruitcakes are very, very nutty. And there are some fruitcake makers nowadays who, in an effort to shirk the scourge of the fruitcake name, choose to call their fruitcakes something else. For example, I hope to be trying a sample of the Women Helping Other Women Cranberry Orange Walnut cake very soon. I contacted their customer service and asked "which cake is the most like a traditional fruitcake?" and that's what they told me. They don't actually have a cake called a "fruitcake," yet they have several cakes that contain fruit. Hey, I'm not judging; I can understand why they might do it. But enough excuses; let's get on to the cake.

As you can see from the ingredients, there is a lot of icky stuff, but I will believe them when they say that it contains less than 2% icky, since most of those ingredients (except for the high fructose corn syrup) seems to be part of the candied fruit. There are some nice pieces of fruit in this cake, though not as much as a regular fruitcake. That could be an advantage to those who aren't super into the fruit in a fruitcake.

This cake DEFINITELY has nuts in it--that nut being the pecan. I am a fool for a good pecan. It's my favorite nut. In texture this cake resembled some of the more candy-like southern cakes--barely enough "cake" to hold the ingredients together, and that "cake" was more like candy--very sweet and gooey in texture.This cake really accents the pecan, with a hint of some candied fruit, in an almost candy-like batter.

What I don't like about this type cake is that I feel the batter holding the ingredients together has an uncooked quality to it and tastes a bit like raw dough.

This would be a good cake to get if you a) really like nuts; b) like a very sweet, candy-like cake without a lot of cake in it, and c) like a fruitcake without so much fruit in it. Hmm, just re-read that last sentence. A non-fruity, non-cakey, non-fruitcake.

Buy it if you like pecans.

Lookee what's coming!

2011-11-26T12:25:00.012-06:00

Look at what I literally found at my doorstep today (albeit in boxes):

That's the Women Helping Other Women Cranberry Orange Walnut cake on the left, and the Sunnyland Farms dark and light fruitcake combo on the right. It is truly the gladsome fruitcake season!

Guest review: Beekman 1802 Fruitcake

2011-11-25T09:50:00.006-06:00

Happy day-after-Thanksgiving, and welcome to the gladsome fruitcake season! Our friend vkrn is back with a guest review. This time she's reviewed the Beekman 1802 Fruitcake sold on the Williams-Sonoma site.

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I stumbled upon the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Recipe Fruit Cake on the Williams-Sonoma website when I was surfing for interesting untried edibles. Always a sucker for any food marketed as traditional, I plunked down $45 (sans shipping) for what Williams Sonoma called a "moist, dense cake bursting in flavor." As Beekman 1802 sells its fruitcake only through Williams-Sonoma, you are unable to buy the cake via Beekman 1802's own website, but the company does devote considerable webspace to describing the history of its fruitcake and gives you a link to its recipe.

Beekman 1802 was founded by the self-styled "Fabulous Beekman Boys," otherwise known as Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell. Ridge is a physician and former VP of Healthy Living at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Kilmer-Purcell is an author and regular contributor to NPR and Out magazine. They now run a farm and store where they sell their own products such as cheeses, soaps, and other sundries. The company names itself after William Beekman, who was something of a master of all trades. As a boy, he had fought in the Revolutionary War, and later settled down to become a merchant, judge, and state senator. Beekman 1802 promotes two different versions about the fruitcake's origins. The first one states that Beekman's housekeeper named Generous created a locally famous alcohol-soaked fruitcake that she sold during the holidays for extra cash. The story printed on the box itself states that Beekman himself was the mastermind behind this supposedly popular product. Whatever the case, now Black Cat Bakery in Sharon Springs, NY, bakes the Beekman fruitcake.

The cake arrived in a sturdy brown cardboard box, impressive for its size and 1 1/2 lb heft, and nestled amidst sparse tufts of dried straw. What's baked into the cake is straightforward: dried figs, dates, dried apricots, golden raisins, dark raisins, dried cherries, dried pineapple, pecans, butter, white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, salt, white flour, and Lairds Applejack Brandy. Kudos to Beekman 1802 for banishing unpronounceable ingredients. As unadorned as the box, so is the cake's appearance itself, plainly wrapped in cheesecloth -- none of those festive nuts or glistening red and green cherries studded on top. Instead, the cake boasts a thick crumbly crust, baked a deep tan, that is relatively hard to cut through. Unlike other fruitcakes, the interior is also relatively dry -- it would be a stretch to say it was even moderately moist. That, as well as the pronounced lack of any alcohol flavor, made me wonder where the Lairds Applejack Brandy had gone. Because my cake was so dry, cutting it did not yield nice thick slices like those pictured on the Williams Sonoma website. Instead, my slices tended to crumble into a messy pile. Perhaps the dryness reflected the vagaries of the bakery's oven. Biting into the cake, while not precisely the equivalent of taking a mouthful of sand, did not have me rapturous over a moist crumb. Instead, I was glad to have my tea at hand to wash it down. Such a dry cake made the individual pieces of fruit stand out, only because they tended to fall out of the surrounding cake. The figs -- listed as the most common ingredient -- were certainly an aggressive presence, because I was biting into them frequently and their numerous tiny crunchy seeds unfortunately compounded the sensation that I was delving into gritty sand rather than a fruitcake. Much less notable were any of the other fruits except for the raisins -- again, a detraction. Finally, I didn't note any significant contribution of pecans, which was unfortunate because I like a balance of fruits and nuts Let's just say I wasn't looking forward to demolishing the remains of the Beekman fruitcake, and it sat around like a large brick in my kitchen for a few days before gradually disappearing.

Worth the $45? I would vote to invest that cash towards another fruitcake.

That which is unattainable is highly prized.

2011-11-22T11:51:00.009-06:00

I want this. This is what I want. Celui-la, j'en ai envie.

Friend of Mondo Fruitcake Glenn called my attention to the fruitcake made by the monks of the Cistercian Abbaye Val de Notre Dame. It looks delicious, and has a really interesting back story that involves (slightly) the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, where my favorite fruitcake comes from. You can read more of the story of the fruitcake here. It seems they got the idea of selling fruitcakes from the Abbey of Gethsemane and went down there around 1985 to learn more about business operations (but not surprisingly, didn't share their fruitcake recipe).

The article I linked to above is an old article and seems to be referring to another monastery, but Glenn has done his detective work and believes he has figured it out. He explains more below:

Now there isn't a lot of info online but what I was able to gather is that this fruitcake was originally made by the monks of the Cistercian Monastery of Notre Dame in Hockley Heights, which is situated in Orangeville, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. These monks were from the same order of the Oka monastery in Quebec.

About 10 years ago, the Monks at Hockley Heights, due to low vocations, were forced to leave and the monastery was taken over by a Ukranian order of Studite monks. By leaving Hockley Heights, they returned to Val Notre-Dame Abbey at Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Oka, Quebec and took the fruitcake with them. This is now the home of the fruitcake which they now sell on their website.

Intriguing! According to the article there may be green tomatoes in the mix, which blows my mind. Regardless, it's yet another fruitcake to add to the monastery fruitcake "to be reviewed" list -- and there aren't too many left. Other than New Skete in New York, I believe I've tried pretty much all of the monastery fruitcakes in the US.

But here's the kicker. Take a look at the sales conditions:

GAAAAAH!!! So close, yet so far away. No worries, I will work my connections and see what I can do. But one day--this cake shall be mine.

Thanks very much Glenn for bringing this fruitcake to my attention!

Golden apples.

2011-11-19T14:07:00.001-06:00

I just received a newsletter from June Taylor, a company based in Berkeley, California, USA, that sells locally to farmers markets and have quite interesting organic products.

They have a fruitcake, called here a Christmas cake, which looks quite lovely. The fruit is macerated in port; the cake is soaked in brandy. I have a sneaky suspicion I would be transported if I purchased this cake, much as I was with the Robert Lambert fruitcake.

But. $50. For one pound. This cake must be made from angel’s wings, jackelope whiskers and unicorn horn.

Still hope to try it one day!

Update on Mary of Puddin Hill

2011-11-19T13:53:00.000-06:00

They are, then they are not. A reader had mentioned a while ago that she had received word that Mary of Puddin Hill might be closing. However, their site is still around.

I e-mailed their customer service to see if I could find out more, but my e-mail bounced. Sometimes some companies just aren't as on top of their Internet traffic as others, but still. Does anyone have any updates?

Dag nab it. Ordered the wrong cake.

2011-11-12T11:50:00.000-06:00

I was planning on providing a review of the Palestine, Texas Eilenberger Fruitcake. Unfortunately, after perusing what I actually received, as well as their site, it looks as if I got the Texas Pecan cake. Dag nab it. Listen, I only have a certain number of calories I can expend each holiday season eating fruitcake. I'm sure I've devoted at least 500 of them to eating something that isn't even a fruitcake. Shame on me.

I need a while to brood over this. Review of this cake (heck, I ate it, might as well review it) coming soon.

Next fruitcake is from.....

2011-11-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

The American South. Texas, to be exact. This time, a recommendation from a reader, Eilenberger from Palestine, TX. Here we go--it's fruitcake time!

Do it yourself boozing?

2011-10-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

Don from Virginia wrote me to ask about a fruitcake he remembers:

Also, years ago I got a fruitcake from some monastery or abbey that required me to drizzle bourbon or maybe brandy over the cheesecloth and then reseal on a periodic basis until the holidays. Strong but very good, not to be served to minors. Any idea about who that may have been, and is there still such a cake?

Anybody know which one this may have been? Of course I could see any number of fruitcakes benefiting from a good dosing.... And thanks Don for writing!

Review: Abbey of the Genesee Rum fruitcake

2011-10-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

I purchased the two pound rum fruitcake from the Abbey of the Genesee. They also have a one pound cake (suitable for giving) as well as a larger round cake in a decorative tin. Didn't order it but based on the photo here it looks like a standard tin that I know I've seen with another fruitcake. The two-pound cake was $19.95 with shipping which ended up being $26.75 to the middle of the country.
The cake came in a pretty commercial-looking package:

Here's a close up of the ingredients, too:

Not great (do I mean the photo, or the ingredients? A little of both). Besides the standard ingredients, there were hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, corn syrup, artificial flavors, agar, maltodextrin, locust bean gum, and some preservatives.

Here's the cake, denuded of its packaging:

There is a glaze on top, probably the apricot concentrate, which was neither distracting nor gooey, and gave it a nice finish.

As you may have seen from the ingredients, the nuts in this cake are just marked as "nuts." I think we've seen this before--I'm guessing this is a way to hedge which nuts you choose to include, based on world nut stock prices, etc. Helpful Brother Paul at monksbread.com confirmed with me that they are almonds and walnuts. I have to say I like an almond in a fruitcake. The Claxton fruitcakes contain them. Their sweetness is a nice counterpoint to the darker richness of the walnut, and they give a nice texture to the cake.

The fruits were your standard fruitcake mix (cherries, pineapple, fruit peel), with the addition of my personal favorite, the date. The booze was, as noted by the name, rum. There was a good amount - you tasted it throughout.

Although the guar gums and preservatives worried me, the flavor was actually very good. There was a good amount of cake to fruit, so you could really taste the cake. The cake itself did not seem gooey or uncooked, but rather had a nice quick bread density: rich and moist.

Yup, I've been eating it happily lo these many weeks since I originally posted about having purchased it. It's a good one!

So now onto the next. What shall it be? I'd love your suggestions in the comments!

A few more slight changes to the site

2011-10-15T13:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the feedback on the menu pages. I also miss all of the fruitcakes just dwelling there on the right-hand side of the page, but I don't miss the clutter, so I've posted the top-rated fruitcakes in the four categories (Monastery, Southern, Other, and Mass-Produced) over on the right. Also added a gadget for the most looked-at posts. Hope that helps!

By the way, Abbey of the Genesee fruitcake will be posted soon, what shall I do next? Please post in the comments! I would love to do this one, but unfortunately as of this posting it's not yet available. Silly Neiman Marcus - don't they know that fruitcake season is year-'round? At least for some of us...

Menu items have been moved

2011-09-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

So I removed the fruitcake ratings from the right side of the blog and put them on their own page, which you can get to from the right side.

Is it clear? Can you see it? Let me know in the comments!

Next fruitcake: Genesee Abbey

2011-08-21T20:14:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's been a crazy busy summer for me but I've managed to get around to ordering a fruitcake. This time it's from the Trappist Genesee Abbey in New York. I think this is one of the last monastery fruitcakes I have to cover -- but someone please correct me if I'm wrong! You all know by now that, in general, monastery fruitcakes are my favorites. So I'm looking forward to this one. I still have at least 6 others on my radar to review, can you believe it? Eilenberger bakery, June Taylor, Dancing Deer Harvest cake, Neiman Marcus.... welcome to fruitcake season!

Mary of Puddin Hill closing?

2011-05-22T10:02:00.002-05:00

Carolyn, one of my blog readers, subscribes to Mary of Puddin Hill's e-newsletter. She recently forwarded along shocking news: Mary of Puddin Hill is closing as of May 21. Here's more from MoPH:

Mary of Puddin Hill today announced that it will close effective Saturday, May 21st. Efforts to sell or merge with another bakery company will continue.
[...]

Owner Ken Bain further explained that the largest fruitcake company in Texas, Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana has disclosed plans to build a megastore in Greenville similar to their stores in Waco and Corsicana.
[...]
To continue to compete we would have to do extensive remodeling or relocate, equip with the newest baking equipment and add the newest digital age media tools to our marketing efforts.
We are deeply grateful to our many longtime friends and customers throughout Texas and America. We are especially humbled to have been able to continue the rich legacy of the Horton, Lauderdale "Puddin Hill" story over these past ten years.

There doesn't seem to be anything more on their web page, and it is to be hoped that they can find a buyer to carry on the tradition. Seems weird that there actually seems to be a fruitcake competition down there in Texas.

It's a very sad deal, as this is one of the more delicious Southern style fruitcakes I've had. You might want to buy one now!!

The recipe for Kate & Will's wedding cake

2011-04-29T14:50:00.000-05:00

If anyone should know how to do a proper Christmas cake, or in this case, wedding cake, Fiona Cairns should, as she created the cake for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Here's a link to it on the ABC News website. How I would love this for my own wedding cake. I think in the US, if fruitcakes are EVER used as wedding cakes, they tend to be called the "groom's cake." Anyone care to comment?

Thoughtful, Detailed, and Intelligent....

2010-12-23T21:30:00.001-06:00

That's me. At least that's what the Wall Street Journal says. The Wall Street Journal, by the way, are completely my fruitcake homies. They often publish nice articles about fruitcake. This article is not really one of them--you have to wade through the usual fruitcake jokes, etc. to get to mention of me. But I gotta say, the Fred Schneider song about fruitcake, although annoying, is pretty cute in that B-52's sort of way.

Hey, by the way, just got the loveliest surprise ever -- mini-fruitcakes, a Dundee cake, and a stollen from the woman who makes the best home made fruitcakes ever, Veda.

Christmas will be great. To all a great fruitcake!

Guest review: Bien Fait bourbon and brandy fruitcakes

2010-12-19T11:54:00.000-06:00

With great pleasure I present a guest review from vkrn, a reader who first suggested the Bien Fait cakes.

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I purchased both the Bourbon fruitcake with nuts and the Brandy Fruitcake with nuts online from Bien Fait, a small bakery in Greensboro, Vermont, which gives all its proceeds to Greensboro Wonder & Wisdom, a local nonprofit which works with children and seniors. Bien Fait offers their bourbon fruitcake with or without nuts (walnuts and pecans), and their brandy fruitcake only with almonds, so fruitcake fanatics who don't have allergies to those nuts can breathe a sigh of relief. In addition, to round out the ingredients, Bien Fait uses currants, figs, raisins, cranberries, golden raisins, brandy, prunes, dates, apricots, orange peel, and lemon, in the brandy fruitcake; the bourbon fruitcake contains raisins, golden raisins, figs, bourbon, prunes, currants, dates, apricots, walnuts, pecans, and orange peel. They emphasize that their fruit contains no preservatives or artificial flavorings, a welcome relief from the commercial fruitcakes in the stores now (Costco, that means you).

Both the brandy and the bourbon fruitcakes come in unassuming brown thin cardboard boxes, about 3/4 the size of a red brick. The box is adorned only with an oval Bien Fait sticker on top, and the fruitcake itself is wrapped in holiday-themed tissue paper. Underneath the tissue paper are the cakes, first bundled in two layers of plastic, with cheesecloth still wrapped tight up against the cake itself. The fruitcakes come with little external adornments, but their simple packaging completes the air of homemade goodness, which Bien Fait supplements with a little card sporting pictures of its bakers, hearty-looking New Englanders topped with hair netting.

The cakes themselves were crammed with nuts and fruit, with no need to wonder when you'd bite into another morsel. I'd even hazard to guess that they were 90% fruit and nuts. For this fruitcake lover, the generous portion of fruit and nuts made for great mouthfeel and chew, and there was enough orange peel to make me happy. Both the bourbon and brandy options were dark cakes, which were moist, not pasty or dry. With the fruit, the cakes ranged possibly a little overly sweet -- they would be great paired with tea or coffee. Only the subtlest hint of alcohol lingered in the mouth after every swallow, to the point where I wouldn't be concerned about feeding the cake to youngsters. Possibly a touch more alcohol would have balanced out the sweetness.

For fruitcake lovers, these cakes are definitely a must-try -- and this is coming from someone who has made it her mission systematically to order the best-quality fruitcake on the US market, and who eternally regrets missing out on fruitcake while in Scotland on business.

The cakes are priced at $15 each, very reasonable if you were local and picking up the cake at Bien Fait's Vermont store. But they do tend on the small side if you consider the price plus shipping. Keep in mind, though, that all proceeds support the nonprofit Greensboro Wonder & Wisdom. Bien Fait fruitcake is therefore a small indulgence for your tastebuds, while your money goes to benefit children and seniors in this difficult economic climate. It's a rare opportunity to buy online while also supporting local efforts to improve American communities.

Review: Bien Fait

2010-12-19T10:31:00.000-06:00

The people at Bien Fait Specialty Cakes graciously sent me two of their cakes to review. Because I've had inquiries about cakes that don't contain nuts, I asked for their bourbon fruitcake without nuts. They also said that their Golden Jewel cake is fairly well known, so sent that one along. Both cakes are $15.00 for a one pound cake, and shipping to my location runs about $11.70 ($8.50 for one cake).

Although there are no tins for these cakes, the packing is pretty cute: a plain box but a cute label:

And then each cake is wrapped in pretty tissue paper. This was the fruitcake:

And this was the tissue used on the Golden Jewel cake (sorry, it's blurry but still cute):

Another thing I really appreciate: both cakes were packed with a plastic bag and tie. Mary of Puddin Hill does the same thing, and I really like it--they have already anticipated your need to pack up the cake for future eating, and are helping you make sure that your cake stays fresh.

Both cakes come swaddled in cheesecloth, as they are both soaked in liquor. Here are photos of each. And if you think my photos couldn't get worse, well, I took photos of the fruitcake with my new phone, so feast your eyes:

The bourbon, no nuts, and

The Golden Jewel.

So on the fruitcakes themselves. I'll start with the traditional bourbon fruitcake. Here are the ingredients:

Yes, a lot of raisins, and also molasses, which often translates to a burnt, raisiny taste that I'm not particularly fond of, but that was not the case here. The fruit was all good quality, not dry or too sweet. There was a good cake-to-fruit ratio here, with the fruit well distributed throughout the cake. There was a bit of that quick-bread type quality due to the dried fruit and general lighter taste. However, because of the light aura of bourbon wafting throughout the cake, this one still tastes more like a fruitcake and less like a date nut bread, for example.

Figs are a funny fruit--if you've ever eaten a Fig Newton you'll recognize the funny texture that the seeds give to anything they're in, and the same is the case here--so if you don't like figs, don't get this cake.

This cake resembles, in many ways, its Vermont neighbor, the Old Cavendish cake, except that unlike that cake, it contains booze. But they both use dried rather than candied fruit, and both have a fresh, quick-bread type flavor. This one leans more towards a traditional fruitcake taste, with the inclusion of the booze, and I like the no-nut option.

I may need to create a new category, eh? That "Other" category is getting long and heavily weighted with cakes that use dried rather than candied/preserved fruit. Maybe "Modern"? "Lighter-tasting?" "Dried fruit cakes" (though that doesn't sound tasty)? Suggestions welcome--please comment.

And so, on to the Golden Jewel cake. Per Bien Fait, this cake has become quite popular, and they call it (deservedly) a "tropical twist" on a classic fruitcake. Here are the ingredients:

Yah mon! Definitely more tropical. When I first unwrapped it, it looked similar to the Robert Lambert white cake, albeit a lower budget one. And I would say if I had to draw a similarity, it would be to that cake, or even to the Swiss Colony Macadamia Nut cake. All three share a vaguely similar pound-cake like batter. I must warn you that if you don't like the texture of coconut, don't get this cake. The shredded coconut gives a rich but also slightly hairy texture to the cake.

And yes, this is absolutely tropical tasting. Between the pineapple and the coconut, as well as the rum, you get a bit of a piña colada or maybe even ambrosia-like flavor. The apricots really make their presence known as well, and I found the cranberries to add a refreshing tartness that I would have liked a bit more of.

So is it really a fruitcake? Well, there's fruit and booze in it, so yes, I guess so, but it's definitely non-traditional. Ah-HA! Maybe I have a new category name right there!

By the way, the profits from the sale of these cakes support Wonder and Wisdom, a non-profit in Greensboro that conducts social and cultural enrichment programming.

Do you booze-up your store bought cake?

2010-12-15T06:57:00.000-06:00

Do you "doctor up" your store-bought fruitcakes?

I've heard from several people who use their own ingenuity (and their own booze)to spike up a cake that they like but feel could use a little lagniappe. Right on, to those of you who do. I'm a bit too lazy to even do that, but I bet that would really punch up the flavor on your cake.

This came up recently with the College of the Ozarks cake. Its cake-to-fruit ratio is such that it could definitely handle a shot or two without damage. As my reader Al-in-chgo recently wrote me, "Perhaps this has occurred to you, but the Southern fruitcakes with their teetotaling tradition make excellent vehicles for a buck-up with booze. Some people recommend injecting the spirits via eyedropper; I just say pour some on and when it all soaks in, it's sterile enough to stay in the fridge another six months. "

Well-said, Al!

So, I ask you: do you dose your cake? Discuss!

Do you doctor up your store-bought fruitcakes? Add a comment!

Next up: Bien Fait

2010-12-12T21:05:00.000-06:00

Next fruitcake will be a couple from Bien Fait Specialty Cakes in Vermont. One of my readers purchased a couple of their cakes, and will be sharing her reviews as well.

Meanwhile, buy some fruitcake! I mean buy some good fruitcake!

Review: College of the Ozarks

2010-12-03T15:17:00.003-06:00

I bought the cute little one pound cake from the College of the Ozarks. A reader had mentioned this college and I find the whole premise of the college intriguing. Each student MUST have an on-campus job. One of those jobs is selling their food products, only one of which is fruitcake: they also sell summer sausage, apple butter and jams, and corn meal and other milled products. You can read more about their fruitcake-making history here.

This cake is fairly pricey: I paid $24 for the one pound cake, shipping included, and the other sizes (two and three pound, as well as mini fruitcakes) range in price from $30 to $36. That puts it on the higher end but still within range of most other fruitcakes. I couldn't resist; I also bought the summer sausage and a jar of apple butter. The sausage is waiting to appear at an upcoming Christmas party, but the apple butter is delicious.

Here's what's printed on the box it came in:

Quite an interesting school seal, isn't it? The tin is quite attractive, with a drawing of the Williams Memorial Chapel, the centerpiece of their campus:

Here's the cake:

So cute! Definitely has that homey quality to it.

Onto the cake itself. Here are the ingredients:

I guess I'd prefer butter to margarine, and gee, guys, could you get into a bit more detail besides "candied fruit" and "nuts"? Considering how some of the ingredient lists I've seen contain enough parentheses and brackets to choke a lawyer, I would appreciate a bit more. From my un-scientific analysis, it looks like the nuts are walnuts and pecans, and the fruits are raisins (uh-oh), cherries, and citron. All are chopped to a nice size, not too large, and they are well integrated into the cake.

The cake is very nice, a golden pound cake type batter: not gooey, but still rich. There is a very nice ratio of cake to fruit--enough fruit where you know it's a fruitcake, but enough cake to be able to taste and appreciate its quality.

The taste is NOT raisin-y. I think that flavor that I dislike may come from a combination of molasses and raisins, but this cake did not suffer from that sort of caramelized yukkiness. On the contrary, this fruitcake had a nice, clean, cakey and fruity flavor. There is no booze add additional dimensions of flavor, so you taste pretty much fruit, and cake.

So now I come to my dilemma: what kind of fruitcake is this? Would it classify as Southern? It's not nuttily candy-like, but I've had other Southern cakes that are not out and out gooey candy-like confections. Monastery-type, of course, is right out; I'm sure both the monks and C of A would agree there. It could almost be an "other," because it doesn't claim to be a Southern fruitcake, and has that lighter taste that many of the cakes in that category have. Seeing as College of the Ozarks is right outside of Branson, which is very close to the Arkansas border, I'm going to proclaim this a Southern fruitcake and add it at number three on that list, and with a bit of rearranging, we'll have Claxton, C of A, then Collin Street and Southern Supreme.

A note here about ordering from C of A: they do not have online ordering, nor do they take credit card numbers over the phone. When I called, they said that I could place my order and they would bill me, but my 21st century mind could not fathom the idea of someone shipping me something with that amount of trust, so I sent in a check with my order blank and received my order promptly. And do pop for some summer sausage or corn meal--support the students, buy local(ish), and buy American!

Review: Kirkland Traditional Fruitcake

2010-11-25T10:27:00.001-06:00

I took advantage of a good friend's Costco membership and purchased the WHOPPING 3.5 pound Kirkland Traditional Fruitcake. The cake cost $12.99. See a problem there already? I do. The Lambert fruitcake, to jump to the other end of the spectrum, is $50 for 16 ounces. In a previous post, I had computed the average cost per pound of fruitcake to be about $18. That's per pound. This cake costs that much for 3.5 pounds. I don’t like where this is going.

The cake is packaged in plastic, very different than the usual tin or box. I think the goal here is eye appeal, if huge chunks of nuts and red and green things are appealing:

I must say, I found the walnut and pecan halves on top of the fruitcake appealing--nuts ain't cheap. But they were joined by those nasty cherries, and this topping was mounded on top of the cake. It literally took up half the height of the cake--the cake was somewhere buried below. It made it difficult to cut and eat.

As to the ingredients:

Pretty typical, nothing wonderful, and a few preservatives to boot. For you citron haters, there were none, only those cherries and pineapple.

On to the cake itself. This cake is gooey. Gooey, gooey, gooey. It has the unappealing color of clay or peanut butter. Many cakes do not contain a lot of batter; the cake is used merely to hold together the other ingredients--the fruit and nuts. This is that type of cake, but not in a good way. The cake part tasted uncooked and grainy. The fruits and nuts were about the same size as what's on top of the cake, which I found a bit too large. It was cloyingly sweet with no other flavor besides the fruit.

This cake, my friends, is the epitome of why people hate fruitcake. Haven't I said it enough? The mass-produced fruitcakes, the ones that are stacked in grocery stores this time of year, are, in general, made of low-quality ingredients and they flat out don't taste good. They are made to look like the idea of a fruitcake, without having the actual good taste of a fruitcake.

And yes, to all you haters, fruitcakes can taste good. If one of these mass-produced cakes has been your only experience of fruitcake, well then, I can understand the hatred and revulsion. I feel it too, towards this kind of cake.

So there it is:

3.25 pounds of fruitcake, on its way to the garbage. There is no reason to continue eating this one.

Review: Kirkland Fruitcake

2010-11-21T13:52:00.001-06:00

Avoid.

Just had to get that out there. Review coming soon, after I choke down another piece in order to give it one more chance to taste good. I'm not hopeful, though.

Alabama Fruitcake

2010-11-13T13:33:00.001-06:00

Just received correspondence from a reader who is selling fruitcakes baked from a family recipe that he is selling in small batches. I have my list of fruitcakes pretty defined for a couple of weeks at the least (really, how much fruitcake can one girl eat? I have 2 on the way), but I just checked out his website and it looks interesting. I can't speak at all for this fruitcake but thought I'd pass it along if anyone wants to check Alabama Fruitcake out.

Anyone know of a fruitcake that uses whole wheat flour?

2010-11-07T19:43:00.000-06:00

I was asked by a reader if I knew of any cakes that use whole wheat flour. This obviously would affect the texture, I would think, and doesn't sound terribly appetizing to me, but to his point, would make the cake healthier. If anyone has any ideas, please post in the comments!

Cabela's fruitcake?

2010-11-04T16:30:00.001-05:00

Seems a little weird that Cabela's, the outdoor store, has a fruitcake, but indeed they do. However, allow me to do a little detective work on this. Hmmm, Grandma's fruitcake. From a 1917 recipe? Since they're not specifying exactly whose Grandma they're talking about, I would say that this is the Grandma from which they are getting their fruitcakes. If you look at the photo on the Cabela's page and the one from my review, you'll see that they look very similar.

I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with Cabela's selling a mass-produced fruitcake--certainly I don't expect Cabela's to be busy baking fruitcakes during the holiday season. This is just a cautionary message to all: it's probably best to buy your fruitcakes from a trustworthy source, not from the same place you'd buy ammunition.

Next up: College of the Ozarks fruitcake

2010-10-30T17:09:00.000-05:00

A reader had alerted me to this fruitcake last year and I had mentioned it then but didn't get to it. I think it's about time I got around to it. They actually have an interesting list of other products they sell, and I'm sorely tempted to try the summer sausage as well as some of the corn-meal. So I'll be ordering this one soon!

Just plotting out my next fruitcakes for the holiday season. I've already reviewed an "other" fruitcake, and since College of the Ozarks is in Missouri, that will qualify (sort of) as a "southern" fruitcake--though of course I'll determine that when I taste it. I shudder to think of which mass-produced I'll be reviewing, but have been considering the Costco fruitcake, recommended by some readers.

Finally, I may just be beginning to run out of monastery fruitcakes, but there's one I haven't done yet: the Genesee abbey in New York. Their fruitcake looks fine, and is available from their site as well as the Monastery Greetings site.

So all that should keep me busy!

New updated fruitcake at New Camaldoli Hermitage

2010-10-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

Mark from New Camaldoli Hermitage wrote me the other day with an update on their fruitcake. Evidently, they have a new and improved recipe. Per Mark, "We have eliminated all margarine and use only butter--there are now no trans fats. We are still using raisins and walnuts though! Also, we have new packaging that is made of 100% recycled material."

I had reviewed both their fruitcake and their date nut bread previously. I'm not sure if I'd be able to taste a difference with the new recipe, but I certainly appreciate a trans fat free dessert! Click on the title of this post to jump over to their fruitcake selections. Figures that a hermitage in California would be so health- and eco-conscious, n'est-ce pas?

Review: Mileeven Irish Fruitcakes

2010-10-25T12:25:00.001-05:00

Whoopee--my first "foreign" cake! (Not counting Jane Parker, which I think is made in Canada but that's on the same continent). OK, my first non-continental fruitcake.

Bruce at Bewley Irish Imports sent me three Irish fruitcakes to review. Bewley Irish Imports is a wholesaler, however these cakes will be available at Wegmans supermarkets and some local Irish stores on the East coast. You can contact Bewley Irish Imports to find out the specifics.

These three cakes were all 14 oz. each and should retail in the $13 - $14 range (full disclosure: I received them free).

As you can see on the right, the cakes are attractively boxed. They come in three variations: one without any booze at all; one with whiskey; and one, interestingly, made with Irish stout beer. Very interesting! I was excited to try them.

I will tell you one thing about all three of these cakes: they all look pretty much exactly the same. You can see a bit of a glimpse through the window of the boxes at right, but basically they all look like the photo below--not gorgeously beautiful or decorative, more like a quick bread, which is really what they resembled (plus my horrible camera skills make everything look like mush).

The fruits in this cake are sultanas (white raisins), and orange and lemon peel. Ingredients also include molasses. There were no preservatives or things to make you go "yikes!" in the ingredients--very nice.

The cake itself smelled like gingerbread to me. In texture I'd say it very much resembles a quick bread. The cake was drier than most soaked fruitcakes but I'm not saying it was dry--it had a nice crumb and texture and the fruit was well distributed throughout the cake. Now, if you've been reading this site, you know how I feel about raisins in general--I'm not a big fan of them in my cake. The sultanas were a bit less raisiny than the good old dark ones, but they were still raisins. While trying these, I was always happy to bite into a piece of lemon or orange peel--it gave the cake a bit of variety.

Another thing that disappointed me was that I really didn't notice any big difference between the three cakes. I tried the one without alcohol first, then the cake made with whiskey, concluding with the stout-laden cake. They all looked the same, and they pretty much all tasted the same. The two cakes containing alcohol seemed to have a bit more dimension of flavor to them--a more complex aftertaste, perhaps, or, in the case of the one with stout, a bit deeper flavor right off the bat. But in general, they lacked the overwhelming booziness of a cake that's been dipped or sprinkled with booze. I'm guessing that the alcohol is included in the batter, and as we know, most alcohol is burned off during the baking process. Still, if I were buying one of these, I would go for either of the cakes made with alcohol, and most probably the one made with stout, as I did notice a tiny bit more richness in the flavor.

The boxes shown on the Bewley Irish Imports site for this cake show a cup of tea along with a photo of the cake. I heartily agree--I would classify this cake not in the heavier, boozy, gooey fruit-laden category, but more in the quick bread or teacake category--more like a date nut bread than what we think of when we think "fruitcake". This cake would be delicious with a cup of tea-it certainly was a nice slice with my morning coffee. I'm going to put it into my "Other" category, and suggest it as one of those "gateway" or "beginner" fruitcakes.

Recipe: Veda's Dundee Cake

2010-10-14T17:43:00.001-05:00

As with the previous recipe, this can also be halved. This was my preferred of the two cakes. This cake had a dense, pound-cake like texture. Bits of currants and orange and lemon peel were spread throughout the cake, giving it a lovely, light citrus taste. But don't forget the booze--it was there as well, so the overall taste was delicious, light as fruitcake goes but undeniably fruitcake-y.

I'm not super keen on the round cake pan that Veda calls for--although the cake made is beautiful (see photo), I find that having a hole in the center is very helpful when you're cutting a heavy cake. So you may want to use an alternate cake pan. A tube pan will work but of course, adjust your baking time.

Veda's Dundee Cake
Fruit:
2 pounds yellow raisins
3/4 pound currants
1 pound each candied orange and lemon peel, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup whiskey, plus additional for sprinkling over finished cakes
Macerate fruit in the whiskey overnight in a large covered container.

Batter:
1 1/2 pounds unsalted butter (3 cups), softened
1 1/2 pounds white sugar (3 1/3 cups)
10 extra large eggs
Grated zest of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 3/4 pounds unsifted all-purpose flour (5 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon each baking powder and salt
2 teaspoons each grated nutmeg and powdered allspice
1/4 pound ground almonds (1 cup)

Decoration:
1/2 pound blanched almonds for decorating
1/4 cup corn syrup

Preheat oven to 300° F and place rack in the middle of oven. Place a pan of water on the floor of the oven.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add zests and almond extract.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and spices together and add to creamed mixture until blended. Do not overbeat. Scrape down the sides of the bowl several times. Add almonds.
Fold in fruit mixture until evenly distributed (you may need a larger bowl).
Line four 3 x 7" round pans with double thickness of parchment. Paper should extend an inch above the rim of the pan. Fill pans 2/3 full and level off with the back of the spoon.
Bake for one hour 45 minutes until almost done. Remove from oven one at a time.
Brush cake tops with corn syrup and arrange almonds quickly in concentric circles on top of the cakes. Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to lightly brown nuts. Check with a toothpick to make sure cakes are done. Cool in pans.
Sprinkle each cake with additional 2 tablespoons whiskey.
Wrap in parchment, then foil, and refrigerate for up to 4 weeks.

Yield: four cakes.

Recipe: Veda's Dark Fruitcake

2010-10-10T10:55:00.001-05:00

See review here. Veda uses muscovado sugar in the cake but tells me that regular US brown sugar will work fine as well. You can certainly halve the recipe if you don't want quite so much.

And an extra note: this blog is devoted to reviewing commercially-sold fruitcakes. I've decided that I will review one homemade fruitcake a year, and so I'm done for 2010. Trust me, though, these are fabulous!!

Veda's Dark Fruitcake

1 3/4 pounds pitted dates, quartered
1 3/4 pounds pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 pound each golden and dark raisins
1 pound each candied orange and lemon peels, coarsely chopped
1 pound currants
1/2 cup brandy
1/2 cup orange juice

Mix all of the above in a covered container and let stand overnight or a few days. Shake occasionally to mix.

Batter:

1 1/4 pounds unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds (3 1/3 cups) muscovado dark brown sugar OR packed standard dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
8 extra large eggs at room temperature
Grated zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1 1/4 pounds (4 1/4 cups) unsifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon each salt and baking powder
1 tablespooon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons each ground nutmeg and cloves

Decoration:

1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 pound nuts and 1/2 pound candied cherries

Line five 8"tube pans with parchment, grease with melted butter. Or use 6 8" loaf pans.
Preheat oven to 300° F. Put a pan of water on the floor of the oven to prevent overbrowning.
Cream the butter and sugar together for five minutes until fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add zests.
Mix all the dry ingredients together and add, mixing on low speed until blended. In a very large bowl, fold fruit mixture into batter with two spatulas.
Fill lined pans 3/4 full, level off with the back of a spoon to prevent air pockets. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes until almost done. Take cakes out of the oven, brush tops with corn syrup, arrange nuts and cherries on top of each cake, and return to oven for 15 minutes more or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.

Cool completely in pans. Remove paper.

Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of brandy per cake, wrap in parchment and then foil. Age a couple of weeks before serving. Additional brandy may be added every two weeks.

Yield: approximately 14 pounds

Cakes will keep up to six months refrigerated.

Veda's Dark Fruitcake

2010-09-30T19:47:00.000-05:00

I am MORTIFIED to learn that for some reason, I have no individual photos of these beautiful, beautiful homemade fruitcakes I was sent. Veda's cakes were both absolutely gorgeous, as you can see from the one--and only one--photo I have of the two cakes, flanking a home-made pie at my family's Christmas dinner. The dark fruitcake, towards the front, is surrounded by leftover slices of other fruitcakes I had reviewed during the year. That's the family tradition every since I created this blog - to feast on the leftovers from a season's review of fruitcakes (I freeze slices of any of the fruitcakes I deem worthy of being retained).
So as you look at the photo of my sister's beautifully festive table, the Dundee cake is towards the back, garnished with toasted almonds, while Veda's dark fruitcake is towards the front, garnished with fruit. I'll just talk about the dark fruitcake in this post, and provide the recipe as well in another post.

Veda's dark fruitcake contains pecans and walnuts as the nuts, and dates, golden and dark raisins, currants, glaceed cherries and candied lemon and orange peels for the fruit. If you've read my blog at all, you know how I'm not super keen on raisins in my fruitcake, as I think it gives it a syrupy burnt flavor, and the same was true with this cake. But that is simply an individual preference, and let me tell you, beyond that, I still ate the whole cake up. The glaceed cherries were of very high quality, and Veda even sometimes candies her own oranges and lemon peels, so all the ingredients were quite delicious. It has a delicious boozy flavor, from both brandy and rum. Yum. As recipes go, I'd say it's a keeper.

Been a while, eh?

2010-09-30T19:37:00.003-05:00

So it's been a darn long time since I last posted, n'est-ce pas? I apologize. I have to admit that after the last fruitcake season, I was just flat out burned out. There's only so much fruitcake you can eat, and keep in mind I've been doing this nigh on five years. And those five years have taken their toll on my waistline.

So I've gotten the waistline, at least, under control, and I think I can see my way through integrating the errant slice of fruitcake into my diet. So it's time to slowly re-introduce it and see how it goes . . .

Meanwhile, I have done a huge disservice to Veda, who sent me gorgeous fruitcakes and the recipes, and I haven't posted. But maybe this is, on the contrary, a positive thing. Frankly, who wants to think about fruitcake in March? But now the trees are turning, the pumpkins are coming out, and people are beginning to think of dark spices and lots o' carbohydrates.

It's Fruitcake Season.

Gorgeous home-made fruitcakes

2010-03-06T13:36:00.004-06:00

Hello, I'm back! It seems like the previous fruitcake season (which for me, remember, begins around May and continues through January or February) took a heavy toll--I was happy to be without them for a few months.

Before the Christmas holidays, I was contacted by Veda, who lives in New York City. This woman has got it going on when it comes to fruitcake. I tell you people, home-made cakes are the best. I don't often accept home-made cakes to review, but Veda sent me her two specialty items: a dark and a light fruitcake (the latter she calls a Dundee cake).

These cakes were both beautiful and delicious. Veda works very hard on making beautiful, quality cakes, and annually sends 300 pounds of fruitcakes around the world to family and friends. She spares no expense on the quality of the ingredients and actually has a room dedicated in her house for storage of these lovely things before shipping them off.

Veda was nice enough to provide me samples of and recipes for both of her cakes. Recipes, reviews, and photos to follow soon!!

Slate: Embrace the fruitcake!

2009-12-20T15:10:00.003-06:00

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?

2009-12-16T18:49:00.002-06:00

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

2009-12-12T11:41:00.011-06:00

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

2009-12-04T23:14:00.003-06:00

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

2009-11-27T15:45:00.010-06:00

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

2009-11-22T13:32:00.000-06:00

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

2009-11-14T12:05:00.004-06:00

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!

2009-11-07T11:00:00.008-06:00

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

2009-10-20T20:30:00.013-05:00

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

2009-09-17T21:15:00.010-05:00

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

2009-09-12T15:23:00.005-05:00

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

2009-09-12T07:50:00.013-05:00

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.

Next up: New Camoldoli Hermitage Date-Nut Cake

2009-08-27T21:32:00.005-05:00

Next up will be the Date-Nut cake from New Camoldoli. I had previously reviewed their fruitcake, which although it appears last on the monastery fruitcake list, was still much better than any of the mass-produced fruitcakes.

I love date-nut cake. I've made them myself from some really delicious California dates, so I have high hopes for this cake. Plus, it's brandy-dipped--how can that be bad?

Look for a review soon!!

Review: Georgia fruitcake and Womble’s fruitcake (2 pounds)

2009-08-15T14:31:00.015-05:00

The Georgia fruitcake company is the second fruitcake company hailing from what is evidently the Fruitcake Center of the Universe: Claxton, Georgia. Both the Georgia fruitcake company and Claxton fruitcake have similar histories: a mysterious Italian man comes to Claxton, opens a bakery, and apprentices guys who eventually go off on their own to make fruitcakes.

With such similar histories, I am really surprised that the fruitcakes themselves are so different.

I bought four pounds worth of fruitcake in the middle of June. Yes, let me repeat, FOUR POUNDS OF FRUITCAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF JUNE. What I do for this blog. In addition, I have yet another cake (the date-nut cake from New Camoldoli Hermitage) waiting for me to review once I finish this one. So I actually have SEVEN POUNDS of fruitcake in my fridge. Luckily I am surrounded by fruitcake lovers, so was able to share some of my bounty.

On to the Georgia fruitcakes. The Georgia fruitcake company provides fruitcakes to the military. So instead of coming in a pretty tin, the fruitcakes I received were vacuum-packed into their tins, so they looked more like funny-looking cans of coffee than fruitcakes. The cans themselves are quite cute, but again, nothing fancy from a gift-giving standpoint:

I was a bit disappointed to not have that lovely “whoosh” and aroma of coffee when I opened the tins using my can opener. Here’s a photo of the cakes themselves (try to tell them apart—no difference, really, other than the poor photography):

Both cakes contain a lot of good quality preserved fruit in a very nice, cakey batter. These cakes are much more like a monastery fruitcake than the usual almost candy-like consistency of the Southern-style fruitcakes.

First thing on the ingredients list is cherries. There is a lot of red fruit in these cakes, but it’s a good quality, size, and texture. Other fruits are pineapple and raisins, but not too many of the latter. (I’ve mentioned in the past how I really don’t like too many raisins in my fruitcake. I really consider it the filler dried fruit—a raisin is to a baked good what a carrot is to frozen mixed vegetables.) Nuts include pecans, almonds, and walnuts. Like the Claxton fruitcake, it contains orange peel, but also contains lemon peel, neither of which are terribly pronounced but, I’m sure, add to the overall effect. The nut mixture, I’d say, is different than the Claxton fruitcake—the Claxton fruitcake contains more almonds, which gives the cake a different texture and less of that nutty flavor you get from walnuts and pecans. Bad things are the partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, some artificial flavoring, and sodium benzoate and sulfur dioxide as preservatives (I don’t think you can get away from some of those preservatives if you use, ahem, preserved fruit). I’m not sure why I continue to call candied fruit “preserved fruit”. It’s so unappealingly technical—yet truthful. Maybe that’s why.

The main and, it seems, only difference between the regular fruitcake and the one called “Womble’s” (named after the owner) is the addition of my favorite booze, Kentucky bourbon. So this is truly a treat and a category-spanner: a Southern fruitcake that contains booze.

The one big problem I have with these cakes? Lack of a hole. What, you say, a hole? Why would I have a problem with the lack of something that isn’t really there to begin with? Well, I’ll tell you.

I’ve just done a quick look through all of the fruitcakes I’ve reviewed. The basic shapes are either rectangular or round. The rectangular ones are very easy to slice: basically, you slice them like you’d slice a loaf of bread. I usually cut into a cold fruitcake using a serrated knife, with a sawing motion. You have to stabilize a fruitcake to cut it, because it’s hard to cut through. With a loaf, you simply hold it and start cutting off the end. With a round cake, you again need to hold it to cut, but then after you’ve cut your first slice, you need to wiggle it away from the rest of the cake. That’s where the hole comes in handy. You can get one hand in there and sort of rock the slice out. But when your cake has no hole, this is a problem. I ended up cutting very ragged slices and would often leave half of the slice behind as I tried to lever it away from the rest of the cake. Is this a huge problem? No, I guess not. But it was a niggling annoyance, and I don’t like to be pecked to death by tiny ducks. Those niggling annoyances build up, and suddenly you’re honking your horn and shaking your fist at people on the way to work (not a true story, but you know what I mean—these things add up).

A good work-around is to cut the whole cake in half. Then you can stabilize one half as you begin sawing off one end.

The fruitcake smells great and really looks and tastes much more like a monastery cake than a Southern style cake. It has more of a cake-like batter, and although it’s recommended that you chill the cake for cutting, it doesn’t stand the risk of falling apart like some Southern-styles do. The batter in these cakes is an integral part of the overall flavor of the cake, and strikes me as similar to the Gethsemani batter. That being said, both of these cakes are a bit sweeter than monastery cakes, which is pretty typical for Southern-style cakes.

So, the conclusion on these cakes: a very good, almost monastery-type cake, with the sweetness of a Southern-style cake. I’m happy to know that our armed forces are fortified by good-tasting, quality fruitcake. And I love the fact that you can get one with whisky in it. I’m going to move these to second in the Southern-style fruitcakes ratings list, but will add an asterisk to the Womble’s cake since it’s been doped with whiskey. Mary of Puddin’ Hill still tops the list because it’s got the best ingredients and is a great example of a truly delicious Southern-style fruitcake.

Next up: Georgia Fruitcake Company

2009-07-04T12:10:00.004-05:00

The votes are in, and the next fruitcake will be from the Georgia Fruitcake company. I was thinking of getting their regular fruitcake, but one reader found another one they have that includes bourbon in the mix. So, in the interest of fair, balanced reporting, I'll get both.

Yes, that means two fruitcakes. And I definitely want to experience the fruitcakes that come vacuum-packed into a can like so much coffee. So I have four pounds of fruitcake coming my way, to be reviewed as soon as they come.

UPDATE: Just ordered them, and there's no shipping - how nice!

Reader's choice: which one next?

2009-06-29T20:53:00.004-05:00

Hi - sorry I've been so tardy. For some reason I haven't been in the mood for fruitcake, lately. Maybe because it's been so cold for summer here in the Chicago area. It seems the warmer it gets, the more I want fruitcake--specifically, a Southern-style fruitcake. Yes, I know it's perverse, but there it is. That's what eating fruitcake year-round will do to you.

So I'm leaving it up to the 1.25 people left reading this blog to help me select which Southern-style fruitcake I'll try next. Which would you choose?

Sunshine Hollow Bakery -- the fruitcakes look good, but I'm sorely tempted by the Woozy cakes.
W.H.O. Women - A North Carolina charity, I'm checking to see if these are even available outside of the holiday season. UPDATE: they do ship year-round.
Sunnyland Farms - From Georgia, their special ingredient is grape juice. A sad replacement for booze in my opinion, but I'm game.
Yahoo Texas Manor Fruitcakes - This one might be on the edge of Southern and Mass-produced. A sort of mass-produced Southern cake, maybe? But look at this adorable cake--I might need to get one of those, too!
Georgia Fruitcake - I find this one very intriguing. The cake hails from Claxton, Georgia, home of the Claxton Fruitcake. How one town can support two fruitcake companies, I don't know.

See how many I still have to do? And these are only the Southern-style. Sheesh. Anyway, please vote in the comments, and write-ins will definitely be considered, as well--that's how I found the lovely Holy Spirit Monastery fruitcake. Happy Fourth of July to everyone!

Review: Robert Lambert 1-pound Dark Fruitcake

2009-05-30T11:08:00.006-05:00

So here's the dark Robert Lambert fruitcake:

It looks about the same as the white one, but it is, of course, darker. This one looks and tastes much more like a traditional dark fruitcake--there seems to be more cherries than the light one, so when you slice it, it looks more like a traditional cake. It, just like the white one, has lots of stuff in it--figs, dates, and prunes, as well as more exotic peels, like blood orange and bergamot. It also includes both port wine and Jack Daniels.

Flavor, just as the previous one, is good and exotic, but a bit more traditional than the white fruitcake. Just as with the previous, the size of the ingredients in this loaf is a bit off-putting to me. It may be due to the small size of the loaf to begin with, but I really don't like how large the bits are. Plus, as I had mentioned in the Old Cavendish fruitcake review, I dearly love figs, dates, and prunes outside of a cake, but don't really love them inside one.

Just as with the Lambert white fruitcake, you can definitely taste the quality of the ingredients in this cake. This is a very good fruitcake: it's different, a bit exotic, and might be a great one to try if you're trying to find something different in a traditional dark fruitcake--this is a dark fruitcake that goes to 11, as Spinal Tap would say. However, because this one tastes more traditional than the white cake, I would probably purchase a monastery fruitcake over this one--you get more cake for your dollar.

Perhaps I'm jaded because I tried the white fruitcake first, but that one was really something different, and if I had to choose between purchasing one or the other, I'd definitely purchase the white fruitcake.

Review: Robert Lambert 1-pound White Fruit Cake

2009-05-16T12:09:00.006-05:00

Look at this precious little gem.

I received the very wonderful gift of a set (white and dark) of Robert Lambert fruitcakes, for which I very much thank the sender. This is just a review of the white or lighter fruitcake – I still have the other little treasure in my fridge. It’s a beautiful fruitcake, but the price—the price. $50 for a 16 oz cake. That’s about $3 per ounce--roughly 3 times the price of most other fruitcakes I’ve reviewed. Is it worth it? Yes--once in your lifetime, it’s worth it. This fruitcake rocked my world. This could lead me down the path of seeking out higher-end fruitcake or, dare I say it, creating my own. Definitely a fruitcake for foodies.

The tiny-tiny, precious little loaf comes looking like a present from heaven, and smells divine. I undressed the cake like a lover. Here’s the cake itself:

Ingredients are all natural and the strangest ever. Dig the fruits: white raisin, dried pineapple, glacéed cherries, coconut, candied Meyer lemon peel, blood orange peel, bergamot peel, Rangpur lime peel, and Buddha’s hand citrus. The nuts? Brazil nuts, almonds, walnuts, and pecans. It is seasoned with ginger and brandy. This is what the $50 is going towards, I’d guess.

This is definitely a fruitcake for grown-ups. It contains large chunks of stringy, hairy things (the aforementioned peels, as well as the coconut). The cake batter itself is much like a good pound cake and, as is usual for a fruitcake, merely serves to bind the fruit together. The flavor? Exotically interesting, distinctive—a whole different fruitcake experience. It has a very heavy peel and ginger taste. It’s delicious and one of a kind, but a bit exhausting.

A couple years ago, my boyfriend and I went to Las Vegas and had dinner one evening at Guy Savoy, in Caesar’s Palace. It was the most fabulous dining experience of my life. The service was unobtrusively doting, the décor, fabulous, and Céline Dion’s husband was eating dinner with a group of Québécois a couple of tables away. There was someone designated to fold your napkin and put it back on the table for you if you went to the washroom. There was a little chair for my purse. And the food blew my mind. You get the idea. This fruitcake is like Guy Savoy. One time in your life you must try this fruitcake.

This is number one with a bullet, to the top of the Other category. I look forward to eating the next one.

Yes, I still exist

2009-05-16T01:28:00.002-05:00

I am still alive!!! Just took a bit longer hiatus due to actual, you know, work stuff. But my first reviews of the new year will be so exciting . . . guess which one! Guess which one! Clues are in my last couple posts. Look for a new review soon.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T18:13:00.006-06:00

Happy new year to everyone. I am so relieved to no longer have any fruitcake left in my house, except one. Finally, after a long year of searching, ups and downs, happiness and futility, one final fruitcake comes to my door with a whispered "you don't need any others, baby". . . Gethsemani Farms. I will contentedly munch on that for the remainder of January, then take a blissful sabbatical until my fruitcake season starts up again--May, June, somewhere around there.

I have no fruitcake left in my house because I brought the remainders of the many cakes I reviewed this year over to my family's Christmas celebration. As I've already mentioned, just about all of my siblings and my Mom are fruitcake lovers from way back. So all the family tried the cakes I had in my freezer: Grandma's, Jane Parker Dark, Holy Spirit, and Hermitage Big Sur. Alas, there was no more Mary of Puddin Hill, for I had eaten all of that one . . . definitely my favorite Southern-style fruitcake.

It's always so interesting to get feedback from the family. For one, Grandma's got pretty good marks, after all my bitching and moaning. The reason, primarily, was that in contrast to the heavier, alcohol-rich flavors of the two monastery cakes, and the dark flavor of the Jane Parker, it was lighter, with a more approachable cake flavor. As for the brother-in-law whose mother's fruitcake reminded me of the Jane Parker cake . . . I think he liked it, but of course he still likes his mother's better.

One other thing I want to pass along--the Hermitage Big Sur cake fell apart after freezing. That one seems very alcohol-drenched and that may have had something to do with it. I may have cut the slices really thin, too (I freeze the cake in slices, not whole). It still tasted good, it was just kind of a mess.

So, the fruitcake slate is swept clean, a new year is upon us, and I look forward to more sweetness and good baking in the future. Happy New Year to all.

Review: Jane Parker 1 Pound Dark Fruitcake

2008-12-20T11:13:00.011-06:00

Jane Parker is distributed by A&P food stores. There were A&P stores in the Chicago area when I was growing up, but there no longer are and I guess now they're only in the New York/New Jersey area. If anyone is reading this who can fill me in more about A&P and the Jane Parker fruitcake legend surrounding them, please do so in the comments.

I purchased the one-pound dark fruitcake (they call it fruit cake, with a space). It cost $20 including shipping. They seem to have worked out some type of purchasing and shipping arrangement with Amazon, as that's where you go to buy the cake. This cake wins as having the largest and most wasteful shipping box:

Hello, tiny little fruitcake. Welcome to my home! Perhaps they're implying that I should have bought more. The box that the cake comes in is nothing special, though there are some larger, ring fruitcakes available that come in pretty tins:

A bit presumptuous, don't you think, to call themselves America's Favorite? Finally, the fruitcake itself:

An aside (please skip this paragraph to continue the review): I realize that the following disclaimer is a long time coming, but here it finally is: for all of you who have stuck with me through this blog, and for anyone new or just coming upon this blog: I take lousy photos. It's not something I'm interested in, I don't own Photoshop, and I don't have tripods or lights. I'm really sorry that the best picture you have of these cakes is either a dark small photo (because I couldn't use the flash because of glare), or a shiny, glare-filled photo (because the dark photo was too blurry). I hope they're still a bit helpful.

Although this is a mass-produced fruitcake, I'm going to lump it in with the Other fruitcakes on my sidebar, because it is truly different. A couple of years ago my brother-in-law shared a couple slices of his mother's fruitcake with me. And I loved his attitude about it--he was all "this is my mom's fruitcake, it's what I grew up with, and although it might not be what you're used to, and you might not like it, I don't care." A big BRAVO to that attitude. The kind of fruitcake you love is influenced, I think, by the kind that you grew up with (maybe that's why many people don't like it, because they didn't grow up with any--pity). I'm not here to denigrate anyone's love of the fruitcake that jingles their bells. Well, on second thought, maybe I am a bit . . . but I, to paraphrase Voltaire, might not like your taste in fruitcake, but will defend to the death your right to have that taste in fruitcake.

Anyway, back to my brother-in-law. The Jane Parker fruitcake reminds me a bit of his mom's fruitcake (which was not bad in the least, just very different from what I'm used to). It's a cake, with fruit in it. As you can see from the photo above, there is a lot of cake in this fruitcake. The ingredents are not so great: they include partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, and caramel color. The dark fruitcake contains brown sugar and molasses, as well, and of course preserved fruit (which are called glaced fruit because the cake is actually made in Canada and that's what they call it--I think in the U.S. we call them candied fruit, but for some reason I call them preserved, which doesn't sound as nice but at least I'm consistent). The cake smells as if there's liquor in it, but there isn't a drop--maybe it's the fruit and spice I'm smelling, or even the molasses.

The cake has a very mild flavor--it tastes like spice cake with fruit in it. The fruit are your normal fruitcake size, not too large, not too small. This smaller cake is baked similarly to the one-pound Claxton fruitcakes, in that it was originally a larger cake that's cut into smaller loaves. The only nuts are the pecans on top, which are sort of lacquered down by an agar-corn syrup-corn starch glaze. I'm not keen on these glazes--the previous cake I reviewed had one that was more sticky and less like this one, which is a bit harder and you can sort of peel off the top like fruit leather. Sorry to be a little gross about that, but I'm not keen on glazes. It wasn't so off-putting that it kept me from eating the cake.

The flavor, as I touched upon previously, is really like a moist spice cake with fruit in it. I can see why there is a following for this fruitcake: because it's really quite different than either the heavy, boozy monastery fruitcakes, or the candy-like, nut-filled fruitcakes. It's much lighter, and if someone grew up with this as their definition of fruitcake, they might very well be appalled by the others and miss their relatively easy-going, likable cake.

This is not a cake that I would seek out. That being said, it's not unlikeable, and I won't be throwing it away. It's almost like a Christmas coffeecake--much more approachable than the other types of fruitcakes, and one to put into the "fruitcake for beginners" category I've mentioned in the past. So I've put it there--in the Other category, but notice that it's at the bottom.

If there are any Canadians reading this, I'd love to know if you know who actually makes these (they're distributed by A&P), and any other thoughts on the love (or dislike) of fruitcake in Canada. Because Canada has a closer relationship to England in some ways, there might be more of a tradition of Christmas cake.

Glögg: Liquid Fruitcake?

2008-12-14T20:05:00.004-06:00

Have you ever had glögg? It's a Scandinavian drink, similar to a mulled wine but a bit thicker and sweeter. It contains all kinds of booze, sugar, fruit (normally raisins), almonds, spices. It's like liquid fruitcake. And perhaps (sigh) this is why a lot of people don't like it. I mean, I can understand that--a lot of people don't really drink warm alcoholic drinks, and it is mighty strong and sweet--a lot different, say, than a Miller Lite. But it is a really wonderful thing on a cold night. Cures what ails you.

A lot of people just haven't tried it. In Chicago, you can find it at Simon's in Andersonville. A couple of recipes here and here are similar to the glögg I've had--my ex-father-in-law made it with a similar recipe, and it was delicious. Skål!!

Last fruitcake of the season

2008-12-06T15:48:00.005-06:00

. . . or is it? I took my own (actually, Gethsemani Farms') advice and bought one more fruitcake before the holidays. This time, I chose a mass-produced one that has what I gather to be a rather cultish following: A&P's Jane Parker fruitcake. Of course I bought the dark version.

If the mention of this elicits joy and fond childhood memories, and you've been wondering where to buy them, click that link--it will take you right there. A quick web search found all kinds of fond memories of these. Well, if you've read this blog at all, you know my feelings about any kind of mass-produced version--that is, those cakes made by a larger, commercial bakery. But once again, I will try this one with an open mind, and certainly with respect for people's fond memories of a fruitcake.

The ones I really want to buy--the ones I've been coveting--are these. So beautiful. So expensive. Has anyone tried those? *sigh*. Ah well. There's always next year.

No . . . it's NOT TOO LATE!

2008-12-05T22:18:00.004-06:00

. . . for Christmas delivery. At least that's what the latest catalog from the Abbey of Gethsemani tells me. The third catalog from them that I've received, by the way. At least three each from Holy Cross Abbey, the Wisconsin Cheeseman, Hickory Farms, and Collins Street. At least one from Harry and David. I'm awash in them.

I do dearly love the Abbey of Gethsemani, but their catalog is a bit funny. It makes me think of Taco Bell, a bit. Taco Bell always seems to be coming out with a new food item, but it's really just a re-combination of beans, meat, lettuce, tomato, cheese sauce, and hard and/or soft tortillas. The Gethsemani (and actually, the Sausage'n' Cheese places, too) catalog takes all their products (Gethsemani offers fabulous fudge and yummy cheese, too) and combines and recombines them. A half fruitcake with a half wheel of cheese. A full fruitcake with a half wheel of cheese. A whole wheel of cheese with a full fruitcake. A full fruitcake with a full wheel of cheese with fudge. A half fruitcake with . . . you get the picture.

And why not, really-- I'm sure the variations bring them more money. But it only takes a couple flips of the pages for me to start getting frustrated. OK, all I really want is half a fruitcake and some if-I-eat-one-more-piece-I'll-catch-a-buzz Bourbon fudge. What page is it on? Will they have a quarter wheel of cheese thrown in with it?

Ah, catalogs. At least I haven't gotten another English muffin catalog again. They know when to stop.

Review: Holy Spirit Monastery Fruitcake

2008-12-05T21:30:00.015-06:00

I don't know who this Brother Basil is, but he makes a damn fine fruitcake.

One of my commenters suggested the fruitcake from the Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, Georgia. I bought the 2-pound round fruitcake in a tin for $27.95 and shipping, for a total price of $34.89. Here it is:

Notice the little message about Brother Basil and his kitchen. The tin arrives with a cardboard cover around it:

Unfortunately, I threw that cardboard cover away, and darn if it didn't have the list of ingredients on it. Really sorry about that, but I don't have the exact ingredients. According to their website, the fruit they use in it include "peaches, pineapple, raisins, dates and cherries". The nuts? Pecans. And the liquor includes peach brandy and sherry.

From what I remember from the discarded cardboard thingy, this cake did contain a couple not-so-lovely ingredients, such as high-fructose corn syrup and perhaps some preservatives. But the flavor didn't show it too much. They do something to the top of this fruitcake, however, that I really don't like. They put some kind of glaze on the top to make it very shiny and finished looking. That's why my photo is kind of dull; I had to take it without a flash, because with flash, all you would have seen was the glare of this shiny glaze. Anyway, what the glaze does is make the top very gooey and sticky, which I found unappealing. I managed to work my way around that, though, because I really liked the flavor of this fruitcake.

The consistency of the cake is very similar to my favorite--need I even mention which one that is anymore? There was enough cake in the mix so you could both see and taste it. The peach brandy and sherry gave it a lovely rich flavor, and even though it has raisins in it, which I tend to hate, they were offset by a really nice mixture of all your basic fruitcake food groups--cherries, pineapple, etc.

So now I have to rate it, or at least rank it, huh? Sigh. I wish I had a slice of each one of the monastery fruitcakes I've eaten in front of me right now. They are all so good, containing such good ingredients and having such good flavor, and now I'm having trouble even remembering what they tasted like.

OK, well, since it's my blog, I'm going to bump all of them down one and put this one in second place. It did taste really good.

It could also be that I haven't been getting to the grocery story much lately so I've been really hungry each time I cut into it, and so have been treating it more as a meal than a dessert. I mean, I don't want to denigrate it at all, and its number 2 position is earned: I liked the flavor of this cake. I just wonder how much hunger affects how much I enjoy a fruitcake. Perhaps a subject for another post. But really, who am I kidding? Nothing, not even hunger, could get me past the flavor of some of the nasty ones.

So there you go. Thanks, anonymous commenter--you've pointed me to a goody. Holy Spirit Monastery at number 2. Just don't get it if you don't like shiny goo on the top of your cake.

UPDATE: from customer service, here are the ingredients: Pecans, Pineapple, Cherries, Dates, Sherry Wine, Butter, Eggs, Enriched Wheat Flour, Raisins, Peach Brandy, Sugar, Honey, Invert Sugar, Corn Syrup, Almond Paste, Contains 1% or Less of Locust Bean Gum, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Calcium Propionate[ A Preservative], Sulfur Dioxide, Food Coloring [Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5], Methylcellulose Gum.

The price of fruitcake in America

2008-11-20T21:57:00.013-06:00

Prepare for the shock of your life: mass-produced fruitcakes are not the best value.

I know. Shocking, isn't it? How can I keep this revelation quiet? I feel the need to shout it from the rooftops: AVOID THOSE MASS-PRODUCED FRUITCAKES, PEOPLE!

They make it so easy, don't they, those cakes sitting there at the check-out, or that nice photo right next to the Humongous Basket o' Sausage 'n' Cheese in the catalog. It's a nice looking fruitcake, you think, gee, hmmm, that tin looks pretty, and I need to send a little something to Aunt Gladys. Let me tell you, Aunt Gladys won't write you into the will if you send her that--plus, you're spending more money than you need to on something that just isn't good. And Gladys will probably feed the fruitcake to Peaches, her heavy-breathing little Pug dog.

I was just discussing store closings with someone the other day, and they mentioned something that I was surprised to hear. When some stores are going out of business, they hire liquidators to sell off their goods. Those liquidators sometimes come in and actually mark items up in price. People who may have previously been unfamiliar with the store will see that it's going out of business and come in and buy at that price, thinking they're getting a deal.

So in a way, those people who are unfamiliar with fruitcake (and most people are, aren't they, considering the sniggering hatred of it) are being duped in a similar way--buying something they're unfamiliar with, at a price that I feel is too high for the quality.

Now, in fairness, I was just reviewing my spreadsheet of fruitcake prices again, and upon further review, the Grandma's and Swiss Colony fruitcakes are down towards the less expensive fruitcakes. But Hickory Farms and Wisconsin Cheeseman add a lot of shipping to their fruitcakes, which affects the per-pound price quite a bit--a whopping $10-$12 dollars is what I had to pay to ship to the middle of the country. And isn't Wisconsin in the middle of the country? I probably could have spent less than $10 in gas driving up there to pick it up. Our Lady of Guadalupe had the highest shipping cost for me, as I mentioned in the previous post, and even then it was still a good value because it was three-pound cake.

But as I look at the spreadsheet overall, the monastery fruitcakes tend to be at or below the average price, while the mass-produced and Southern were at or above the average. There was a range of about $14 between the cheapest (Guadalupe) and most expensive (Swiss Colony three-pack) without shipping. With shipping included, the cheapest was Gethsemani (shipping included) while the most expensive was Wisconsin Cheeseman ($10 shipping).

One caveat I want to add here: your results may vary. For some of these sites, I had to go almost all the way to a purchase to find out shipping, and I hope I was able to capture who had shipping and who didn't, but I may not have been the most precise.

Here are the cakes that did not charge for shipping: Assumption, Claxton, Gethsemani, Grandma's, Old Cavendish, and Swiss Colony.

By the way, a couple of the sites were quite annoying when it came to purchasing: Southern Supreme, Swiss Colony, and Wisconsin Cheeseman have all been noted as "annoying purchasing" on my spreadsheet. That can mean one of two things: I had to create a login ID and password to purchase anything on the site; or I had to get all the way to the point where I entered credit card information before I could see what the final total was going to be, including shipping. Those both classify as "annoying" in my on-line purchasing opinion.

OK, kids, you're educated consumers now. Go buy fruitcake!!

What's a fruitcake worth?

2008-11-13T20:31:00.009-06:00

Are you awash in fruitcake catalogs? I am. Funny how that is. I've received at least three to four different catalogs so far this season, as well as this English muffin weirdness--I'm still tempted, but I just don't know who I know who would want English muffins that much.

Anyway, the strange thing is that just about every fruitcake company has sent me not one, but two or more catalogs. I normally do my purchasing on the web, so these catalogs are quickly perused, then tossed into the recycle bin. But I feel sad, almost guilty, when I get the catalogs from the monasteries. I'm guessing these guys aren't awash in money like the guys selling sausage, so I just feel bad that they're wasting their postage and paper on me. Sigh. I guess I can see what I can do about being taken off their mailing lists.

Anyway, enough of that rather boring ramble. Today's message is for all of you who want to know the cost of these fruitcakes without having to peruse each review. Actually, perusing each review (which I recommend, drives up those website hits, thanks!) is a good way to learn about the taste, etc., of the fruitcake, but what about the cost? What's the best value overall? Do you even care about value when it comes to fruitcake?

Well, I think everyone buying a fruitcake should consider the flavor that they prefer first; the quality of ingredients second; but also how much you want to pay, of course. So I did a cost comparison of each of the fruitcakes I reviewed, and I found some shocking, yes shocking revelations about cost.

First, a couple of caveats: my reviews might have some old prices in them, depending on when they were posted. When I went back to check prices, a couple of the fruitcakes had gone up in price, one (Gethsemani Farms) as much as $4. Also, my comparisons are a bit apples to oranges. Many of the fruitcakes were in the 2-2.5 pound range, but I had a couple that were 1-1.5 pounds and one, Swiss Colony, was a collection of three, so it's a little hard to compare. For a couple of those, like the Wisconsin Cheeseman and aforementioned Swiss Colony, I went back to their site and found a standard 2-ish pound cake and got the cost and shipping there.

I fired up my spreadsheet software and compiled the following for each fruitcake: the cost; the shipping fee, if any; the total amount paid; the weight of the cake; and then I divided both the cake cost, and the cake cost plus shipping, by the weight of the cake to get the price per pound, or "value," I shall call it.

I'm not going to enumerate each column of info in this post; I'll just make a few observations and list a few highlights.

First, monastery fruitcakes are still a good value. Yes, even including shipping and the cost of their better quality ingredients, Gethsemani, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Assumption were at the top of the list in value. Even the one with the highest cost to poundage ratio, Holy Cross, was still near the average value of the fruitcakes.

So what is the average cost per pound for the fruitcakes I've reviewed so far? It's $14.83 per pound without shipping; $17.48 per pound with shipping included. Shipping is the real wacky part of all of this; there are quite a few companies that include shipping in the cost of the cake, while others don't. So I've paid $0 to a whopping $12.32 for shipping (Guadalupe). I'm in the middle of the country, in the cold Middle West, so you can gauge accordingly.

I'll leave you to gnaw on those nuggets for a bit. I'll reveal more of my fruitcake data mining in another post.

Next Fruitcake: Monastery of the Holy Spirit

2008-11-07T15:56:00.005-06:00

The fruitcake season is well upon us again; heck, if the stores are any indication, the holiday season has been here since before Halloween. Thanks to an anonymous reader who suggested the next fruitcake, another monastery one. This time it's a place in Georgia, the Monastery of the Holy Spirit.

I guess I should be doing another mass-produced or other fruitcake . . . but I couldn't help it, it's soaked in peach brandy. Will it make a difference? Stay tuned . . .

Review: Mary of Puddin Hill Pecan Fruitcake

2008-10-23T20:59:00.007-05:00

I bought the 1.5 pound pecan fruitcake for $23.95 plus shipping and handling, which ended up being $30.90. Here’s the box it comes in:

Here’s the loaf: it comes in a pan that looks like the type that they can bake it in; it’s cardboard (although silver on the outside and nice looking, as cardboard goes). They also have larger cakes; the 2- and 3-pound cakes come in tins.

One of the best things about this cake is that it comes with its own storage bag and twist tie. What a great idea! Fruitcake is not something most people eat at one sitting (no, me neither), and I think that including this bag shows some nice knowledge of the customer and concern for the quality of their fruitcake.

I purchased the pecan fruitcake, but they also have variations with walnuts, apricots, and other combinations. The very first ingredient on their list is pecans, followed by dates, pineapples, cherries, sugar, wheat, eggs, and baking powder. That’s it. By the way, the pineapples are processed with turmeric—that could be why several fruitcakes have turmeric listed. Not sure. But a very fine ingredients list, I must say, and I really feel it is reflected in the quality and flavor of this cake.

I am not a big fan of Southern style fruitcakes, because I like my alcohol. As usual, this one doesn’t include it. But the flavor of this cake is really nice. First, you have to like nuts, because that really is almost all it is. The cake batter is actually very difficult to find, and in effect the cake is very candy-like in consistency, almost praline-like because of the abundance of pecans. The chunks of fruit (including my favorite, the date) add a little novelty to the heavy nut flavor. This cake has a very clean, fresh, home-made flavor. It’s not goopy; doesn’t taste carmelized; even the candied fruit tastes fresh and is neither hard nor gluey. There are no off flavors. Make no mistake, this is plenty sweet, though.

This goes right to the top of my Southern fruitcake list. It truly stands out because of the quality of the ingredients, the freshness, and the flavor. The cost is certainly justified—have you seen how much nuts cost lately?

Reviewing this one makes me feel a little bad about the Collin Street fruitcake review I did when I was just starting out and didn’t know my Southern style fruitcakes from any other kind. Until recently, they were at the top of my list of Southern style fruitcakes, but they really deserve to be dethroned by this one. It’s a goody.

UPDATE: Since this review, Mary of Puddin Hill has shut down operations. See updates here (read the comments, too).

New, improved sidebar!

2008-09-21T21:14:00.005-05:00

A very slight change, I know, but I hope it will make ratings and reviews more clear to the fruitcake-buying public. My list of fruitcakes eaten and rated had become rather long and ungainly: that's a lot of calories, my friends, I have consumed, saving the overwhelmed fruitcake-buyer from unwise purchases. So I've broken up the list into four separate lists, based on the categories I've come up with to define, in general terms, the fruitcakes I review. I'll give a brief overview of each here, but also see this post for more information.

Monastery fruitcakes: fruitcakes made exclusively by Catholic religious orders (Trappists, Benedictines, etc). My personal favorite, these are usually made with a minimum of artificial ingredients and have a rich flavor due to lots of preserved fruit and alcohol in the batter. They also might use darker sweeteners like brown sugar.

Southern-style fruitcakes: these almost never contain alcohol and focus a lot on nuts, like walnuts or pecans. They tend to be from bakeries in the US South, like Texas or Georgia. You might see just a few more shortcut ingredients like margarine, high fructose corn syrup, and preservatives, but not a lot. These often are almost candy-like, with batter being used primarily to hold all the ingredients together. As of this post, the number one spot is not filled in: that's because I have a new number one in this category, Mary of Puddin Hill, which I will review very soon. After I eat more of it.

"Other" fruitcakes: Notice that the fruitcakes there are not numbered. That's because I'm not really comparing them to one another. These are one-offs, and I'd recommend them for people not that into fruitcake. They have slightly non-traditional flavorings or ingredients (like a bit of cinnamon in the Harry and David cake, and dried fruit in the Cavendish), which might make them a bit more accessible to those not into the more hardcore fruitcakes above. So far, I have two on the list, and I liked them both. I'll need to review another one like this soon.

Mass-produced fruitcakes: Avoid all of these. OK, I'll say a bit more. I fear that these are the ones that give fruitcake a bad name. Most of these come very nicely packaged, with beautiful tins, etc. But these also have the worst ingredient lists: stocked full of high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, preservatives, turnips (no, really), and other unpleasantness. And it shows in their flavor: too sweet, strange textures, just really nasty. And remember, I like fruitcake.

So, there you go. I hope these lists makes things a bit more clear.

I certainly didn't know when I first began this folly that there were actually different types of fruitcake. Ah, how naive I was then--three years younger, and a few pounds thinner.

And to answer another common question: no, I'm never going to make my own fruitcake. Why should I, when so many other people already have?

Review: Grandma’s Bake Shoppe Original Fruit & Nut Cake

2008-07-28T13:32:00.011-05:00

. . . aka Krema Products, aka Beatrice Bakery, aka Big Baking Conglomerate. Thanks to my commenters for help figuring out who, exactly, Grandma is. I purchased this two-pound fruitcake from The Sisters Sweet Shoppe in Dublin, Ohio, but I suspect that the Sisters are a way to put a down-home, authentic feel to a mass-produced product. The product came shipped in a box from “The Sister’s Sweet Shoppe/Grandma’s/Krema/Crazy R[I think this is Crazy Richards],” so they don’t even know who they are. One of my commenters mentioned that Beatrice bakery, which is also on my list, sells a fruitcake that is identical to this product, down to the ingredients list. Thanks Anonymous, I can cross another one off my list. Anonymous actually wrote a great, informative post, so I’ll include it here:

"Grandma's was my introduction to better (than Claxton or Jane Parker) fruitcake, back during Christmas of '75. Three spirits! Just like Dickens' tale. The two-pounder came in a lovely gilt, embossed box, and the aroma greeted you the moment you lifted the lid. This cake has come from everywhere. In the beginning I received it as a corporate gift, and then I ordered it from Figi's. I think it has been marketed under more than one label. Two years ago I ordered a cake from Butterfield Farms, and I declare it was a Grandma's, just repackaged. (I emailed my suspicion, but got no response.) For a brief period in the '80's the Grandma's producer, at that time Beatrice Foods in Nebraska, offered a very nice Amaretto version, delivered in an exquisite black, end-opening tin. But shortly thereafter, somebody in management decided fruitcakes were passé', and began marketing the basic product under the name "fruit and nut bar." Later still, it was back to "fruit and nut cake." And in a very plain green cardstock box, with a cellophane window. Our local purveyor of fancy Christmas foods stocked them near the front door, where the sunlight dried them out, and it was then that I realized how much syrup must be used in the production process. For several years my cakes had crunchy bits of crystallized sugar in them. By the turn of the millennium, I discovered your all-time favorite monk-made delight from Kentucky, and have tried other monastery cakes since (at your recommendation). For nostalgia's sake, I haven't forsaken Grandma's, but compared with better fruitcake it tastes very candy-like to me today. Much like our local favorite Southern Supreme, except with the spirits. Stay hopeful as you try this one, but not too . . ."

I agree with you, A. Anyway, the cake cost $25.95, with free UPS shipping. It comes in a very pretty tin:

That’s probably the best thing I can say about this fruitcake. As mass-produced fruitcakes go, it ranks at the top of the pack, but there are a whole bunch of other fruitcakes I would recommend before this one.

The cake itself is extremely light-colored, one of the lightest colored cakes I’ve come across (maybe it has something to do with ordering it in July, but I don’t think so):

Raisins, cherries, and pineapple are the fruits, while walnuts, pecans, and almonds are the nuts. It also contains three liquors: brandy, rum, and bourbon. With all of the aforementioned ingredients, one would think this one has a chance of tasting good. Well, the ingredients previously mentioned are offset by corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, many preservatives, and our buddy, turmeric. The cake has an uncooked batter flavor to it—very sweet. In any case, it still doesn’t taste all that great. The texture of the cake itself was similar to the Gethsemani Farms cake, and compared to the previous Hermitage Big Sur fruitcake, it was much lighter. I liked the texture, but texture alone can not redeem a fruitcake. I think that the three liquors gives this cake a slight edge up on the mass-produced fruitcakes that don’t contain any alcohol, but it still just doesn’t taste good.

At least there are no turnips.

Cute little Swiss fruitcakes

2008-07-06T14:27:00.008-05:00

So I was recently in Switzerland and stumbled upon a couple of fruity baked things. One is called Läckerli Früchtebrot, and it's an older brother to these cookies that I had mentioned previously. It really was a loaf-shaped incarnation of the cookies, a bit moister but tasting the same. The loaf was very thinly sliced, and contained the same things as the cookies, including the Kirsch. It was quite delicious--I love Läckerli, so to have it in a bit moister fruitcake format was a wonderful thing.

While in Switzerland, I went with a friend to a small town called Sent in the Graubünden area. It's a beautiful area, with high mountains, steep valleys, cows and goats, and in the town of Sent, a local specialty called Bündner Birnbrot. This really wasn't a cake so much as a bread, as its name suggests (the brot part). It was a yeast bread, but it was chock full of dried fruit and fruitcake spices, as well as whole hazelnuts, which was really cool. The closest thing I could liken it to was either the batter in a stollen (minus any fillings and powdered sugar), or a closer resemblance was the Ami de Fromage bread at Red Hen here in Chicago. Man, Red Hen has to have the worst web site for such a successful operation. I guess their reputation precedes them and they don't really need a good website.

So, it's 84 degrees here, and that gets me thinking about only one thing: fruitcake. Time for the next one. Since I've just done a monastery one, let's move on to a mass-produced one. The next one will be Grandma's fruitcake, chosen because Grandma (aka the Krema group, the baking conglomerate that creates them) hails from Dublin, OH, close to Delaware, home of the Little Brown Jug. Check it out--the most interesting county fair ever. According to the Krema site, there are three different types of liquor in the fruitcake--so they've got that going for them. Here's hoping (against hope) that this cake doesn't disappoint.

(Also, check out these chicks from the Krema site--I mean, look at them. I'm speechless).

Review: Hermitage Big Sur Fruitcake

2008-06-09T11:29:00.007-05:00

I ordered a 3 pound (!) loaf from the Hermitage Big Sur Bakery, associated with the New Camaldoli Hermitage, for the total cost of $38.91 with shipping. The packaging is quite eco-friendly looking and no tins are available:

And here’s a look at the loaf itself—unassuming and hefty, though not very elegant:

I believe they do a final dip into brandy before they ship it to you—it was very moist when it arrived, but has been getting less so as I’ve had it in my fridge. Let me tell you, three pounds is a lot to get through—I’ve had a few pieces but the rest are in the freezer.

This is a very good fruitcake, but there’s something in it that’s not my favorite. I may have identified the two culprits—raisins and walnuts. I’m not a big fan of raisins—I don’t like the sweet, grapey flavor that they add to, well, frankly, any dish they’re put into. Walnuts are a fine nut for eating, but they are a little bitter and although I don’t mind them in a cookie, I prefer pecans in my fruitcake.

That being said, if you don’t mind either of these, you’ll like this fruitcake. Ingredients include the standard “fruit mix,” as defined in the ingredients as cherries, pineapple, and citrus peels. There are margarine and vegetable gums but nothing else too bad in the ingredients, and on the good side, there are two alcohols listed—wine and brandy.

There are dates in this cake, which I normally like, but I think they are overpowered by the raisin flavor. The fruit was in pretty large chunks, and there was (yay!) a pronounced alcohol flavor to the cake. As mentioned earlier, it was very moist when I first received it, which was nice.

Let’s talk about a flavor in this cake that I call “burnt.” I think what I might be tasting is carmelization of the raisins in the batter. I checked the last two posts where I mention this burnt element, and both cakes contain raisins. It’s not my favorite flavor in a fruitcake, but apparently it’s not so off-putting that I’ve stopped eating the cake.

So in conclusion, this is not the most elegant cake I’ve purchased—it doesn’t come in a tin, and it’s a loaf, not round, shape. But it’s a nice, large, moist loaf with a very good flavor--if you don’t mind raisins--and I’d say it’s a good value.

Coming soon -- Swiss fruitcake!!

2008-06-08T03:56:00.002-05:00

No, the last fruitcake didn't kill me--I've just been pretty busy preparing for a trip. I'm posting from the Zurich airport right now, and I have two cute little fruitcake type things I bought here in Switzerland nestled in my luggage right now. When I get back and get settled I have the previous fruitcake to review, then will talk a bit about these two. Fruitcakes aren't hard to find in Switzerland, evidently--certainly not in the Germanic part. It's part of their heritage, you know. I certainly wasn't seeking them out, I just happened upon them. At any rate, will post again soon. Tschuss!!

The next fruitcake's name is:

2008-05-03T12:11:00.004-05:00

Thanks for the votes. I was leaning towards Holy Transfiguration Skete, and I still think I'll do that one, but I'm going to leave it to the end. They have a sampler that includes all six cakes that they create. Since four of their cakes are variations on fruitcake (traditional, dried fruit, sourdough, and Jamaican black, which a past commenter had brought to my attention), and the sampler contains one-pound versions of each, it seems like a good way to go. However, I don't feel like footing out the $80 to order it just yet. I think I'll leave that one to the bitter end, when we're more in the real fruitcake season--you know, the time of year when normal people order fruitcake. Six cakes at once--that might be the death of me.

In any case, I've decided on a write-in cake from commenter Brian: the fruitcake from Hermitage Big Sur bakery, from the Camaldolese Benedictine monks in Big Sur, California. First, it's a monastery fruitcake, always a favorite; second, it's only one fruitcake, not six; and third, I covet their location. Really, this is where they're located (from their website): "The Hermitage is located at Lucia, off the Pacific Coast Highway, (Highway 1) about 25 miles south of Big Sur village, 55 miles south of Monterey, and 85 miles north of San Luis Obispo." These monks picked a beautiful place to live.

It's on order. I was touched by how my order was completed; after the credit card information was finalized, you're taken to a page that shows the monks praying, with the message "The monks are prayerfully grateful for your order." Y'know, they're prayerful guys--why not reflect that prayerfulness in everything, even your e-commerce website?

(tap tap) Is this thing on?

2008-04-28T20:04:00.004-05:00

(brushes cobwebs off the keyboard) Hi everybody! Well it's getting to be that time of year--fruitcake season is beginning soon. At least it is for me. Can you believe I still have at least 15 commercial fruitcakes to review?

I'd like to start with my first order in May. However, frankly, I'm not in the mood to pick my first one. So I'm going to leave it up to you, my faithful readers, to pick one for me to review first. I've listed below the ones I have on my list. Please put your preference in the comments section. And write-ins are welcome, too!!

Monastery of the Holy Spirit
Mary of Puddin Hill
Butterfield Farms
Krema
Holy Transfiguration Skete

Saving the Best for Last

2007-12-31T15:52:00.000-06:00

Aaaaaaah.

Finally, the one I've really been wanting to eat. Gethsemani Farms. The one that not only is my favorite, but I appreciate that much more because a) I receive it as a gift from my Mom (along with their amazing, do-not-light-matches-near bourbon fudge), and b) I don't have to review it--all I have to do is eat it.

It's a delicious way to end the gladsome fruitcake season. Happy New Year to all--here's wishing you plenty of good-tasting things in 2008.

The Tide is Changing

2007-12-27T20:37:00.001-06:00

Here's a link to the Wall Street Journal article on fruitcake (not from the WSJ; actually, if you're reading this after December 2008, google WSJ and fruitake if the link doesn't work). I really do think there's a serious fruitcake-lover in the ranks at WSJ. This is an absolutely PRO-fruitcake article. Take heart, fruitcake lovers, your time is nigh.

Podcast on fruitcake

2007-12-22T08:12:00.002-06:00

Munchcast has posted their episode 14, on what else but the fruitcake. I was interviewed and, as it turns out, one of the hosts admits to being a fruitcake lover. I tell you, they're everywhere. Check it out. Their other podcasts are fun, too--episode 13 on pizza was interesting and informative, but gave me the munchies.

Review: Holy Cross Abbey Fraters

2007-12-17T20:16:00.001-06:00

These things are good.

I realize a lot of people, already horrified by fruitcake, would be terrified at the idea of chocolate-covered fruitcake. Even I thought it might be a bit much. Well, gosh darn it--these are really delicious.

Fraters cost $17 for six slices. Look how pretty the box looks:

And they're individually wrapped in a most elegant way:

(Excuse the plastic wrap but I had just wolfed a slice down and didn't feel like opening another, because, of course, I would have felt compelled to eat it immediately).

First, you start with a good fruitcake. I've already reviewed this fruitcake before and really like it. The chocolate is a nice thick layer of dark chocolate, supplied by a local confectionery.

The flavor of this is very much like a dark fruit and nut chocolate. The whole presentation, really, is more like a box of chocolates than a fruitcake. This might be a good way to get your fruitcake-hater friends hooked. Or if you don't want a whole fruitcake, six slices of decadence like this could be just enough.

A Fruitcake Primer

2007-12-11T16:49:00.000-06:00

For those of you unsure about fruitcake in general, or perhaps wanting to make one yourself, Start Cooking has a nice little primer about buying and making fruitcake. Yeah, okay, item #5 points you to this blog--that's how I found it. But the whole post is great--I wish I had had such a nice roadmap before I entered the great big fruitcake forest.

Don't look to me to start baking them anytime soon. First, I have at least five more to review, with more added almost daily, lately. And second, having reviewed as many as I have, I know what things can go wrong. No thanks--all I'll be making regarding fruitcake is an order.

With a bang, not a whimper

2007-12-08T10:36:00.000-06:00

I'm jonesing for some fruitcake, so why not go all out? I'm talkin' 'bout Fraters, yo.

Virginia's Holy Cross Abbey, whose fruitcake is rated number three on my list, sells this delicacy. A Frater is a slice of fruitcake covered with chocolate. Ooh, dark chocolate, no less. How grown-up. I ask you, how can this be bad? They describe them as "a gourmand's delight for lovers of fruitcake and chocolate." And since "lovers of fruitcake and chocolate" brings the audience down to about, what, 10 of us, I feel I should support them in this effort.

Thankful for Fruitcake

2007-11-22T08:40:00.000-06:00

I've had a couple of comments asking about the specifics of the fruitcakes I review; that is, which one's the best? How does one compare to the other? How would you rank them, on a scale of one to four citron pieces?

I've specifically tried to keep my reviews generic for the simple reason that different people like different things in their fruitcake. As I've said from day one, my favorite fruitcake is the one from the Trappists at Gethsemani Farms. But I've gotten a lot of comments from people who are passionate about other types of fruitcake, such as the more Southern-style fruitcakes of Southern Supreme. Far be it from me to rain on anyone's fruitcake parade--I'm on your team, guys. So my intent here is to really describe what the fruitcake is like, so that you can decide if you want to give it a try. Of course if it's really crappy, I'll let you know, but a lot of them are pretty good, just maybe not my favorite.

That being said, I do have a review and rating list over on the side there. Since I started reviewing fruitcakes, I've found that you CAN lump them into general categories, and I've tried to do that with my labels, also posted over on the side. If I get ambitious I might break down further my reviews and ratings by type. In the mean time, let this post serve to explain how I really feel about the fruitcakes I've eaten.

I like monastery fruitcake. I have not tasted one monastery fruitcake that I didn't like. They consistently excel in the quality of their ingredients and their rich, dark, boozy taste. They also seem very competitively priced, particularly if you buy directly from them as opposed to through a reseller (like Williams-Sonoma or Chefshop.com). You'll notice on my ratings scale that all of the monastery fruitcakes have bubbled up to the top. If I received any of these as a gift I would be a very happy camper (that is, if I hadn't already eaten my share of them back in April).

As I look at the ratings list, I see that a lot of the Southern-style fruitcakes are in the middle of the list. If all monasteries were raptured up (hmmm . . . would that happen?), the Southern-style fruitcakes are a good bet. These tend to be more candy-like, sweeter, and non-alcoholic, with a lot of nuts. They have pretty good ingredients, with maybe a bit more corn syrup or margarine in the mix. I miss the booziness of them (somebody help me with another adjective other than boozy, please!), but if you don't like that, these are the type for you.

The fruitcakes to avoid like the plague (and, I fear, the ones that people are most familiar with) are the mass-produced fruitcakes: the bottom of the rating scale. These are the Twinkies of the fruitcake world, except even Twinkies have redemptive qualities (sponginess, bizarre creamy filling) that these fruitcakes, already a scorned dessert, do not. Do not buy these and caution others to stay away.

Then there are the one-offs, or maybe I should call them "gateway" cakes: Harry and David, and Old Cavendish. Harry and David is a mass-produced fruitcake that actually tastes good. And Old Cavendish uses dried rather than preserved fruits, which results in a fresher, more quick-bread type flavor, although make no mistake, it's still all fruitcake. Both of these have slightly non-traditional, more approachable flavors than some of the others. Use these to lead your fruitcake-hating acquaintances into the fold. Pretty soon they'll be chowing down monastery fruitcake with the best of them.

Review: Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery Fruitcake

2007-11-18T18:19:00.000-06:00

There is nothing wrong with this fruitcake.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey is in Lafayette, Oregon. I paid $33.17 to receive 2 one-pound fruitcakes--but that included about $10 in postage. This was back about a month, and now when I see their site, I don't even see the option to purchase the one pound fruitcake. Instead, they have a three pound loaf, which comes in a "handsome container," something I missed. They must change their offering seasonally--this being gladsome fruitcake season and all.

The one-pound fruitcakes are really adorable:

Maybe a little perspective is needed here. Here's the box next to the horrible Hickory Farms fruitcake tin:

They're really tiny but would be perfect for giving. I imagine this is an easier size for the abbey to handle during non-fruitcake season, as well.

So here's the cake itself:

You'll have to excuse the shrink wrap on there; I had already cut into the other one-pound cake and didn't want to have two going at once. Isn't that a cute little size?

The ingredients panel on the box has to be one of the most intimidating and truthful lists ever. I felt like I was reading the small print on a contract, what with the parentheses and brackets- inside-of-parentheses. Every single ingredient, whether it be in the cake, the preserved fruits, or the enriched flour, is there for all to see. This is a full-disclosure list of ingredients. That being said, I didn't find anything too horrible besides the expected chemicals in the preserved fruit, margarine instead of butter, and artificial butter flavor to make up for it. The list also included a delightful little ingredient named "Sheri-rumco Flavor." I'm guessing this gives a . . . hmmmm . . . sherry- or rum-like flavor? In any case, I could find no evidence of this ingredient or the manufacturer of it anywhere, on all of the Internets. Go ahead, Google it. I'll wait.

Didn't find anything, did you? All right, all right, maybe you did, but not much, eh? Well, anyway, it's in this cake, along with brandy, which taken altogether give a pretty good, boozy flavor - not overly so, not underly so, just about right.

This isn't a cake for people who don't like chunks. The batter in this fruitcake serves as binder for good-sized chunks of pineapple, cherries, raisins, walnuts, and pecans. With honey and the aforementioned alcohols and alcohol flavors, one ends up with a really nice, balanced, good-tasting monastery fruitcake. I've been contentedly munching my way through a pound of it for the past couple weeks, and enjoying every slice.

I really like the small one-pound boxes. Although these may not be available year-round, for those of you who want to give just a small amount of fruitcake as a gift or hostess present(unappreciated you will be if you choose to foist a full-size fruitcake on the unappreciative masses), you may want to consider these cute little numbers.

UPDATE: Commenter JP (thanks) has also waxed poetic about this fruitcake, and pointed out that one-pounders are still available (and individually, as well) at chefshop.com. Chefshop also has a story up about the monastery.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yep, the monks have sold out of their fruitcakes. So as JP indicated, the best place to get them is chefshop.com.

AND ANOTHER: I think we bought 'em all, folks. Looks like chefshop.com is out as well.Check the comments for any updates.

Stranger than Fruitcake

2007-11-09T06:44:00.001-06:00

I've been getting A LOT of food catalogs. Go figure, huh? All those companies from whom I've ordered fruitcake have now got me on their lists--I've gotten at least five fruitcake catalogs. But I've started to receive other food catalogs as well--rather interesting, because I always like looking at food. Oranges, King Arthur flour, etc. But the strangest one yet is the Wolferman's catalog. Maybe this is a thing in Kansas City, where they say they got their start, but I'd never heard of them. Ready? English muffin gift baskets.

They have a bit of a history--I guess the Wolferman English muffin is slightly larger than a regular one. They also make a few other carbs, like tea breads and coffee cakes.

I've never, ever heard of this before, but actually, sounds like it'd be a great thing. I think I'd be quite happy to receive a pile of breakfast carbs.

Next Fruitcake: Our Lady of Guadalupe

2007-10-27T12:15:00.000-05:00

I have succumbed to the continued pestering of a frequent commenter, and my next fruitcake will be from Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Trappist abbey in Oregon. I'm being glib--no pestering was needed, not after the horror that was Hickory Farms. I'm always up for an abbey fruitcake. These guys wouldn't let me order less than two of them, a little strange, but since they're one-pound fruitcakes and the total before shipping was $22, not a big deal.

Review: Hickory Farms 2-lb Fruitcake

2007-10-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

I am not pleasantly surprised with this one.

Execrable. Inedible. Absolutely disgusting. I believe I have, once again, confirmed my theory that the mass-produced fruitcakes are horrible.

This is a very cute, $29, 2-lb fruitcake. Or rather, it comes in a very cute tin:

The fruitcake itself is also cute. It is garnished with WALNUTS, a little different than the usual, pecans (and it strikes me as a rather cheap alternative).

But the flavor. Ye gads. It’s interesting that the website lists cherries, pecans, pineapple, etc. as the ingredients in this cake. Sure, they’re there, but the first ingredient? Raisins. The cake is a lumpy, sweet, mish-mash of raisins. You can kind of taste some pineapple, as well as some hideously sweet, bright red candy-like cherries, but mostly it’s just sweet.

The texture is goopy. There is supposed to be some brandy and other booze in the mix, but I can’t taste it. The cherries made me shake, and I’m a fruitcake lover. There are partially hydrogenated oils in this cake, too – isn’t that trans fat? Aren’t people trying to get away from that? Why would I want it in my fruitcake?

No, unfortunately everything I feared about this fruitcake was correct. Avoid it. I think this one actually rates lower than the turnip cakes. The Hickory Farms fruitcake is going directly into the trash. It’s a waste of money.

Now I HAVE to review another fruitcake—I can’t go into the festive fruitcake season with this being the last memory of fruitcake on my mind.

This is my new logo . . . .

2007-10-11T21:31:00.001-05:00

If I can ever get it into the header successfully. Sorry, people, some technical difficulties. Howya like it? I think it's great. My niece, the designer, is groovy (and also grew up on Gethsemani Farms).

It's Fruitcake Season!!

2007-09-22T21:54:00.000-05:00

Ah, I can feel it.The weather is starting to change and people are starting to think about holiday purchases. I've already received at least three fruitcake catalogs, and for certain companies where fruitcakes are a seasonal item, fruitcakes have reappeared on their website.

One of these companies is Hickory Farms. As previously proven by Turnip 1 and Turnip 2, the most popular food gift companies have really horrible fruitcakes, leading, it is my theory, to this mass hatred of fruitcakes. And a justified reaction it is.

So in the interest of the consumer, and all that is good and right with fruitcakes, my next fruitcake will be (shudder) Hickory Farms. Yes, I admit, I'm prejudging the cake. Hey, I've eaten a lot of them lately, and the latest two were both lovely. I'm not looking forward to eating more turnips or high-fructose corn syrup or preservatives or cabbage or whatever the food technologists in the back rooms of Hickory Farms have come up with. They're going to have to bring it, and I doubt they will.

I'm not kidding when I say I eat the fruitcake so you don't have to. Most of the time I enjoy it. Let's hope I'm pleasantly surprised with this one.

Review: Old Cavendish Fruitcake

2007-09-22T21:07:00.000-05:00

The Old Cavendish fruitcake is made by the eponymous specialty food maker in Vermont who also makes mustards and vinegars. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to try a fruitcake that didn’t have what fruitcake haters hate—that is, the brightly colored preserved fruits that one traditionally sees in fruitcake.

I purchased the $39, 2.5 pound, all natural Old Cavendish fruitcake, which comes in a bright red tin. There is also a 16 ounce size, available in both “all natural” and “organic” versions.

They weren’t kidding about all natural:

Love those ingredients, and the cake definitely reflects the quality of them. The one ingredient that I found disconcerting, in both the ingredients list and the cake itself: prunes.

This cake has two different types of alcohol listed in the ingredients: orange liqueur and brandy. There is a lightly boozy flavor but not as heavy as the monastery fruitcakes. This cake also lacks a certain caramel-like depth of flavor that I’ve tasted and liked in other cakes. I’m not sure what causes that—maybe less sugar or lack of brown sugar.

Many people dislike what they claim to be the bitterness of preserved fruit in traditional fruitcakes. You won’t find that in this cake. The flavor is straightforward, fresh and natural, with (obviously) a pronounced dried-fruit flavor. Oh, who am I kidding. There are big chunks of prune in this cake. It tastes pruney. The nut flavor is there, as well, but is not as pronounced because of the nuts chosen: walnuts and cashews. Cashews, a different choice for fruitcake, add a certain richness to the texture but not a lot of flavor due to the general pruni—-um, fruitiness of the cake.

It’s pretty obvious by this point that I did not like the large chunks of prune in the cake. I have nothing against prunes, but I think they should have been cut smaller.

I’d rank this along with the Harry and David fruitcake as a good “fruitcake for beginners.” If you don’t particularly like the taste of preserved fruit (and don’t mind prunes), give this one a try. It’s a well-made, natural, good-tasting festive cake.

UPDATE: This fruitcake is also sold through the Vermont Country Store, as noted by an astute commenter. Also, a commenter reports that the organic fruitcake doesn't have prunes in it.

Right On, Fruitcake Lovers.

2007-09-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

As I ordered the latest fruitcake and scanned the list of those yet to be reviewed, I mused upon the following question: why are there so many companies creating fruitcakes if everyone says they hate fruitcake? These companies certainly wouldn’t continue to sell fruitcakes if no one were buying them.

So why, then? Because there’s a silent majority of fruitcake lovers out there.

It’s a clandestine group who keep themselves to themselves, sort of like AA, or the Masons. Trust me--I’ve come upon these secret fruitcake-aficionados. When they hear I have a fruitcake blog, or they see me with my latest fruitcake purchase, they look me deeply in the eyes, searching for irony. Is she joking? Is she another one of those fruitcake haters who’s going to use that fruitcake as the punch line to yet another hackneyed joke? But then they see the unironic sparkling happiness in my eyes and realize that they’ve found a fellow fruitcake lover. They continue their reserved amazement for a few moments but my babbling chatter about the different types of fruitcakes I’ve encountered warms them and soon they’re describing their favorite fruitcake from childhood, or sharing how they got hooked and why it’s a tradition in their family.

So, fellow fruitcake lovers, do not feel overburdened by the responsibility of representing for the fruitcake. Let the weight rest gently on your shoulders, for there is a large but silent group of fellow fruitcake lovers out there who support you.

(And many of them read this blog and post great comments. I’ve picked up a lot of good information from them, as well as a laundry list of other fruitcakes that should keep me in business for another couple years.)

Next Fruitcake: Old Cavendish

2007-09-08T19:11:00.001-05:00

Next fruitcake to be reviewed is one by Old Cavendish Products in Vermont. They also make mustard. As I had said in this post, the next fruitcake I wanted to check out would maybe not have so many preservatives in the fruit. These people say that they use unsulfured fruit, which gives the fruit a darker texture. Will it taste better/worse? I wait with baited breath.

The best chocolate evah

2007-07-17T13:07:00.000-05:00

Here in Chicago and, I believe, making their way across the US, is a chocolatier called Vosges--"Haut Chocolat." They have lovely chocolate. Lovely, expensive chocolate. The last time I bought a box--and it was for giving, no way would I purchase for myself--a box of 16 cost me $40. They were absolutely delicious--exotic, bizarre collections of flavors I would have never expected but were addictive once I tried them.

About a year ago, I was pointed in the direction (by a friend who owns the Hop Leaf bar here in Chicago) of a Madison, Wisconsin chocolatier by the name Gail Ambrosius. I hesitate to say that she's "just as good" because that seems to be discounting her chocolates in some way. Her chocolates are exotic, wonderfully fresh, delicious little chunks of heaven. But get this--24 chocolates for the same price I paid for 16. That's 8 more pieces of lovely, people. I strongly recommend that you check her out. Her chocolates are available at two locations in Chicago as well as all over Madison, and of course, she does mail order. I don't know how much they mark her chocolates up in Chicago--but heck, Madison's only a four hour drive away . . .

Yup, nothing about fruitcake here, and I'm really not a big chocolate person, but she's just really great.

Review: Assumption Abbey Fruitcake

2007-07-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

The latest fruitcake is from Assumption Abbey, located in Ava, Missouri. This abbey website has won me over with one of the best photos ever, of monks injecting cakes with alcohol. (The rest of the site is very nice, as well—I encourage you to go to their main page for a peaceful mini-retreat). There’s an interesting back story on how the abbey came to the fruitcake business. You can read parts on their website, but there’s also an interesting article here.

The two-pound cake cost $28, shipping included, and arrives in a pretty basic, unassuming tin. Nothing fancy here--the fruitcake I received was simply wrapped in food service plastic wrap, no fancy shrink wrap.

This is a dark, boozy cake, as all abbey fruitcakes seem to be (bless the Roman Catholic Church, which is not alcohol-averse). Fruits in this cake include raisins, pineapples, cherries, currants, citron, as well as orange and lemon peels. Nuts include both walnuts and pecans.

As for the rest of the ingredients, they’re pretty basic. Butter, eggs, all good stuff. The worst ingredients are corn syrup--not even high fructose--and fake vanilla. However, as I continue to review fruitcakes, I’m starting to wonder about the preserved fruits used. They tend to be full of scary-sounding preservatives, like sodium benzoate, sulfur dioxide, and sorbic acid.

Really, now, in days of yore, when they were first making fruitcakes, how did they preserve their fruits? Certainly not with sodium benzoate—I’d hazard a guess that it was not available in days of yore. I’m inspired, now, to review a fruitcake that uses dried rather than preserved fruit. Although most dried fruits have sulfur in them, maybe dried-fruit fruitcakes will have a few less icky preservatives. A dried-fruit type of cake may also convince those people who are frightened of shiny green and red fruit to come to the dark side and become fruitcake-lovers. The texture of the cake should be different, too.

But I digress.

The alcohols in this cake are wine and rum. The rum (which is what the good monks are injecting in the photo) gives the cake that good, boozy flavor, a bit lighter than bourbon. Both the flavor and texture of this cake are similar to the other abbey fruitcakes.

To conclude, then: this is a delicious abbey fruitcake. It seems like you can’t go wrong with an abbey fruitcake. They consistently deliver a quality, well-made cake that tastes great.

The Assumption Abbey Bakery is celebrating their 20th anniversary in the fruitcake business, and that’s reason enough for me to promote this fruitcake to the top of the list of abbey fruitcakes for this holiday season. And why not? Although Gethsemani is still my favorite, heck, it’s my blog.

So let’s keep ‘em in business another 20, eh? Here’s hoping for great fruitcake until 2027 and onwards.

UPDATE: Looks like no one other than Williams-Sonoma sells Assumption Abbey fruitcake. For $11 more. Don't gild W-S's pockets and make your own lighter--shop direct!!

Coming soon . . . the latest fruitcake

2007-06-27T22:24:00.000-05:00

. . . and, hands down, one of my favorite fruitcake-related photos on the web. Really, how can one resist buying a fruitcake from a group of monks that show, on their website, a picture of them literally injecting the fruitcakes with booze? It seems a bit naughty. Fruitcake doping.

Review to come soon. In the mean time, please, visit the other crazy cranks on the Web who have single-minded food blogs. Over to your right are links to other wonderfully monomaniacal blogs like this one.

Check me out at my new, easier-to-pronounce URL!

2007-06-27T22:20:00.001-05:00

I've saved everyone a couple of keyboard strokes and myself the tedium and, frankly, embarrassment of referring to my long, standard blog URL.

Unveiling the new, shorter way to get to this blog--simply type http://www.mondofruitcake.com/. Enjoy!

Review: Southern Supreme 1 lb. fruitcake

2007-05-12T15:02:00.000-05:00

Southern Supreme fruitcakes hail from Bear Creek, North Carolina. Yes, I'm showing a box. This cake came in a very nice box--very elegant in an almost old-school kind of way.

The one-pound, $10.95 fruitcake ($17.20 with shipping and handling) is similar to (and I say similar to, not the same as) the Claxton and Collin Street fruitcakes. Let's say it's of that family--the sweet, non-alcoholic Southern style.

The ingredients are pretty straightforward: margarine instead of butter, but no preservatives (besides those in the fruits). The box advertises the cake as the "more nuts than fruit fruitcake." Walnuts and pecans are definitely in there, as well as pineapple, dates, and golden raisins, giving it a very beige appearance, with no red or green cherries to break up the monotony. Similar to Claxton, it's a rectangular loaf cake with no appearance of a crust.

This was a really, really cute cake. Look at that photo! The cake arrives with the cutest garnish--a bright green holly berry and leaves made from preserved cherries and green pineapple pieces. It's quite novel compared to the other fruitcakes I've gotten. It certainly serves to brighten the beigeness of the cake.
If one focuses on the cake around the garnish, however, it's a bit unpleasant--it glistens like it's wet and doesn't have a cake-like appearance. You can even see this in the cake on their website. It's more like a candy, where the flour and egg serve merely to bind the fruits and nuts together.

The taste is sweet, with a heavier walnut than pecan flavor and a fruity smell. There is something nice about the evenness of the fruit in here, and I am partial to dates in fruitcakes, so that and the pineapple made for a nice flavor. However, I don't like the candy-like texture of this one--I want my cake to be cake.

I think this cake would hold appeal to those who are frightened of the large chunks of cherry and citron in other fruitcakes.

Frankly, sometimes the big chunks even freak ME out.

Hail, anonymous reader

2007-04-24T12:48:00.000-05:00

Yup, I'm back in it. Thanks to anonymous reader X, who recommended Southern Supreme fruitcakes out of North Carolina. I thought I'd ease back into the whole fruitcake thing with a gooey, non-alcoholic, southern style cake. I ordered the 1 pound cake--they say it's their best seller. We'll see. Even anonymous reader X agreed that the best cakes are monastery cakes, but I think I'll do the opposite of what I did last year and lead up to the grand finish of a boozy monastery cake. So come on, gang, there's fruitcake to be eaten!!

I am the luckiest girl ever

2007-01-19T20:53:00.000-06:00

I received an unsolicited fruitcake this week. A friend had read the article about my blog and sent along a loaf of her mother's home-made family recipe.

A good commercially made (or perhaps non-profit made) fruitcake is what I have grown up with and it's what I like. But people, if the fruitcake I tried this week, as well as my boss' Christmas cake is any indication, NO commercially-made fruitcake is as good as homemade fruitcake.

This is the first fruitcake (blurry photo above) where I don't know all the ingredients off the bat, but I know that it doesn't contain booze, does have butter, and only contains a small amount of flour. You can absolutely taste the butter, it adds a great richness, and the outside is almost caramelized, giving it a lovely flavor. A secret ingredient (at least one that I can figure out from its obviousness): dates. What an excellent addition! It's different, but doesn't overpower the other fruit, just adds some distinct flavor.

Now, my main reason for creating this blog was to review the commercial fruitcakes out there, in order to give a semi-objective description of what they taste like. And that's what I'll continue to do, because man, do I have a list to get through. Who knew there were so many commercial fruitcakes out there for sale? Somebody out there must like them!! So please, although I have thoroughly enjoyed the home-made fruitcakes I've received, please don't hunt me down and hand me fruitcake. After all, it's January, and I need a hiatus!

Gosh, I love this self-assigned job--eating fruitcake. I am truly the luckiest girl ever.

And you thought fruitcake season was over . . .

2007-01-08T08:12:00.000-06:00

. . . so did I, until I was contacted by the Chicago Sun-Times about this blog. Read the article here.

Welcome to everyone who's come here as a result of the article. There really are a lot of fruitcake-lovers out there!

After finishing off the fruitcake you see in the article's photo, I'm going to take a break for a few months. There are still a lot of fruitcakes out there to be reviewed, though, so have no fear, I'll be back again to eat and review more.