Fruitcake review: Rustic Bakery Fruit & Nut cake (aka Fruitcake)

Hello everyone! I blame social media and the fact that I can barely even concentrate on an Instagram or Twitter feed for my lack of posting here. But nevertheless, my pursuit of good fruitcake continues, and will continue forever.

So there I was in Whole Foods, picking up, I don't know, olive oil or something, and subliminally my brain was telling me "the items you've selected will not yet cause you to gasp in shock at the amount of your bill! And lo, what did I just then see? The below:

I peered closer. I had seen a whole towering display of panettone, but this unassuming loaf looked like....could it be? I  leaned in for a closer look: 

Yup. They're trying to keep it on the down low, but that there, friends, is fruitcake. 

The name of the bakery is Rustic Bakery out of Petaluma, an organic bakery. It's a beautiful box and they have a nice description on the side describing this cake as something that will "vanquish forever fruitcake's bad reputation!" Bravo!

The price was around $18.99 for a 1 pound cake, give or take a dollar. That's not a bad price for the ingredients, which contain NO preservatives, along with: whiskey, apricots, cranberries, cherries, raisins, pistachios, hazelnuts, pecans, almonds and orange zest. All fruits are dried, not candied. And I say again NO preservatives--nothing bad in this cake (and by bad I mean artificial or food science-y--of course there's butter). 

Here it is out of the box:

And again out of the paper. Looks like the loaf is baked and packaged in the same paper pan:

Finally, a slice:

This cake is not chock-full of fruit and nuts like you may see in a more traditional fruitcake. They are there but there's a lot of cake along with it. I'm sure that's how they can price it at that price point--fruits and nuts are expensive!

That being said, this is a delicious cake. I would put it into a "fruitcake for beginners" category, as it tastes very much like a quick bread. The cake is delicious, buttery and a little crumby as you see, but it tastes really nice. You can taste the whiskey, which elevates it a bit from your usual breakfast bread, but it's not at a smack-you-over-the-head-level that you might get in something more hard core.

I am very pleased with this little loaf. If you're someone who loves fruitcake,  and you want to convince your family that they would like it as well, this would be an excellent choice to bring to a holiday party. And it's right there in the bakery section of Whole Foods, at a price that won't kill you. (Obviously I don't know the extent of Whole Foods' distribution of this to their stores, but it's worth a hunt).

I agree with Rustic Bakery. The cake is very nice, and this--and ones like it--WILL vanquish fruitcake's bad reputation.

Epilogue: when I reached the checkout with my small basket of, like, 4 items, I was shocked to find my bill to be $49.50. That's more like it, Whole Foods. Stay Whole Paycheck there, fellas. 

Fruitcake tasting 2017!

The annual fruitcake tasting was held earlier this holiday season. As you may have read, on the blog or on Facebook, a group of us make different fruitcake recipes and share them. We agreed this year that our fruitcake-making abilities have definitely improved from when we first began. It's hard to make a good fruitcake! There's the purchasing--who's a good purveyor of quality fruit, etc? Then the preparation: carving out enough time and doing enough planning to have your fruit soaking in alcohol, and making sure you have ALL the ingredients in time to bake. Because we have our party right after Thanksgiving, that means that we're purchasing ingredients and baking right after Halloween--when, face it, most people are not in the holiday baking mood.

But several years of practice have honed this group's skills, and the photo below is the result-- a stellar group of delicious fruitcakes, cookies, and even a panettone!

The fruit(cake)s of our labors

What you're looking at, clockwise from upper left, is a panettone, Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Fruitcake, Martha Washington's great cake, a half of Jane Parker fruitcake (the only commercially made cake in the bunch), Nigella Lawson's Gorgeously Golden Dundee cake, the Joy of Cooking's Pfeffernuesse (the powdered-sugar covered cookies), a chocolate fruitcake, and an 1866 (or Lee, as in Robert E) fruitcake. Unfortunately I don't have the last 2 fruitcake recipes in a linkable format yet, stay tuned.

This group has had the Nigella Chocolate Fruitcake once before--a dense, dark fruitcake. I personally don't get a strong chocolate flavor from it; the other chocolate fruitcake tasted more chocolatey. Still, it's a good one to make if you like those dark, caramelized, deep and rich flavors in your fruitcake. 

My friend who made the panettone was not super happy with the result, but I thought it was delicious! A close up of the texture is at right.Some commercially made panettones are cloyingly sweet, but this was delicious, yeasty, bready/cakey, and yummy with chocolate bits and fruit.

I've posted on the Martha Washington cake on Facebook, I'm pretty sure. I would not call it a fruitcake, frankly--it's more just a poundcake with fruits and nuts in it. The preparation for this cake was done by beating the egg whites and yolks separately. The whites are beaten until stiff, and then folded into the batter. However, this batter is pretty stiff all on its own, so I didn't get a good rise--I feel the batter flattened out a lot of the bubbles in the yolks. I also had soaked the fruit in alcohol, as mentioned in the recipe, but then also wrapped the cake in brandy-soaked cheesecloth. Uh-uh. Not enough heft in this cake to support the additional alcohol--it felt a bit too hot in the mouth. Once that alcohol evaporated, however, it tasted fine. I wouldn't bake it again, however, as I truly didn't feel it was a fruitcake.

The other Nigella Lawson recipe, the Golden fruitcake, was a big hit. This cake is described by Nigella as "squidgy," and I agree. It is just oozing delicious, sticky fruit. Big thing with this cake--gluten free! No flour in the recipe. Certainly adds to the "squidginess" if there's no glutinous batter involved! I advise cutting this one in very thin slices, however, as it is quite rich.

Closeup of the 1866 (Lee) fruitcake

The chocolate and Lee fruitcakes were very similar in that they had a pretty even proportion of fruit to cake, and both were QUITE boozy--both are soaked in booze after baking. The chocolate fruitcake was very approachable--almost a quick bread with fruit in it. A good "fruitcake for beginners."

Finally, the Pfeffernuesse. I was a little disappointed. They were fine as cookies go--a spicy gingerbread-type cookie dusted in powdered sugar. I made these because they actually had black pepper in the recipe, and I was expecting something deliciously spicy. They certainly looked cute. But I have another Pfeffernuesse recipe that I've made that I like much better--they are dipped in a lemon glaze instead of powdered sugar, and they taste, well, frankly, more fruitcake-ish.

The Jane Parker I've reviewed elsewhere. It was tasty, but as usual, commercially made pales alongside good, homemade cake.

Hope you all are tucking into a delicious fruitcake of your choice as we edge toward the dark nights of winter. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Review: June Taylor Christmas Cake

I bought the $55, 1-pound June Taylor Christmas Cake online, and then paid an additional $14.90 for shipping to the middle of the country (from Oakland, California, where June Taylor is based). So $69.90 later, a very small, one-pound loaf arrived. Needless to say, this is a very expensive cake, $3.40 per ounce without shipping, $4.37 per ounce if shipping is included, so I certainly had my hopes up.

The cake is shipped with an explanatory note, describing how the cake is made. They certainly keep things local with this cake, even the wrapping paper: per the note, "June watercolors the cake wraps before a letterpress design is printed on them." Here's what that looks like:

The ingredients, listed in this note, ascribe the origins of each ingredient, which are truly locally sourced from around Oakland: the port and brandy in which the dried fruits are macerated is from Alameda, the almonds are from Chico, the Bing cherries are from Escalon. If I lived in the Oakland area I certainly would be proud of the bounty in that area on reading this list. Here's the ingredient list from the back of the wrap:

I hope that's clear (but it probably isn't, knowing me). There are candied citrus peels in this cake, but the rest is dried fruit, including plums, apricots, and cherries. And, unfortunately for this writer, there are a lot of grapes and golden raisins. A LOT of those little guys. Locally sourced, yes, but still a lot of them. Regardless, this is a nice clean, wholesome list of ingredients. 

Upon unwrapping the cake, you find a cute little loaf wrapped in cheesecloth. Per the little note, "your cake has been washed with an aged brandy and wrapped in cheesecloth to keep it moist:"

Looks very similar to the Robert Lambert or other smaller fruitcakes I've had. Here it is unwrapped:

And finally, here's a slice:

A nice proportion of fruit to cake, but not very pretty--everything is very brown. Definitely not a super festive-looking cake. 

So on to the taste. Well I've been hinting at it with the reference to ALL the grapes/raisins: this cake had that sort of grapey, burnt taste that is not my favorite. I think this also may be due to the inclusion of the dried plums. Come to think of it, port wine is also grape-based, a fortified wine, so gosh, that's a heck of a lot of grape in this cake. 

The cake itself has a nice dense crumb and a rich flavor due to the brown sugar, spices, and alcohol, but I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with the flavor. I was expecting something a bit more dynamic or original. Certainly, June Taylor calls this a "traditional Christmas cake," so is certainly not marketing this as anything more than that, and in that sense it fits the bill. 

I did find the cake to be just a bit dry when I first tried it. Referring back to the note packed with the cake (a very useful reference, that), they recommend that it "can periodically be refreshed with more brandy." So before wrapping it up, I brushed a bit of cognac on the outside, re-wrapped in the cheesecloth and put in a storage bag. I also followed the instructions on the note to "refrigerate until the cake is cold and using a sharp knife thinly slice the cake and bring back to room temperature to serve." The next time I tried it, I did just that, let it come back to room temperature before trying it, and that also helped--the flavors and aromas expanded and became more complex. 

So I can say I tried to give this cake the benefit of the doubt. This is certainly a delicious, well-made cake sourced from local ingredients and made with care. If you care about food made from "quality ingredients" from "local farmers and artisan producers" (again from that note), then certainly this would be an excellent cake to purchase. And this cake is indeed an experience: the entire experience shows a desire by June Taylor to create a beautiful, well-crafted cake, even down to the wrap. 

However, face it, this cake cost a lot of money, and for that money, didn't deliver anything terribly original. If you're trying to balance quality with value, I would recommend checking out the Jampot (Holy Transfiguration Skete), Old Cavendish, or even one of the Bien Fait cakes for something similar at a lower price.