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Fruitcake time


fuggled

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Wow.  I mean, that's impressive.  I have to admit I like fruitcake although haven't had it in a loooong time.  When we did, it was always Collin Street Bakery.  My family used to stop there on the way to Dallas but we would just go to buy cookies and other baked goods, not the fruit cake. 

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I have my maternal great grandmother's recipe. After she passed, it was always my father that made them. Now that he has passed, I guess I'm gonna have to take up that mantel. I absolutely love them. My Dad would alter the recipe to have a little more of the candied red cherries than other candied fruits. He would make about $2500 or so around Christmas time baking a bunch and selling them.

CHIEF

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On 11/29/2021 at 4:30 PM, Mo Horn said:

I love fruitcake. I make my mother's recipe, and can't wait.

 

On 11/29/2021 at 7:59 PM, Chewbacca said:

My MIL makes a fantastic fruitcake. She sends us 2 every year. One is mine and one is for everyone else.

 

On 12/2/2021 at 9:41 AM, CHIEF said:

I have my maternal great grandmother's recipe. After she passed, it was always my father that made them. Now that he has passed, I guess I'm gonna have to take up that mantel. I absolutely love them. My Dad would alter the recipe to have a little more of the candied red cherries than other candied fruits. He would make about $2500 or so around Christmas time baking a bunch and selling them.

CHIEF

 

Would any of you be willing to share your recipes?  I've never tried making my own, but think I might want to give it a show someday.

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2 hours ago, fuggled said:

Would any of you be willing to share your recipes?  I've never tried making my own, but think I might want to give it a show someday.

Wife doesn't have it yet.  I mentioned to her that she better get it soon just in case something happens to her mom.  Gotta have priorities, you know.

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On 12/3/2021 at 2:15 PM, fuggled said:

 

 

 

Would any of you be willing to share your recipes?  I've never tried making my own, but think I might want to give it a show someday.

I'm getting my G-Grandmother's on Thursday, I'll post it. It will probably look a lot like Mo Horn's.

CHIEF

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry, it took me a while to eat and review this new fruitcake.  Fortunately, you're not missing too much if you don't get a chance to order one of these this year.

Thanks to a gift from work, I was able to order a new variety of fruitcake from Goldbelly this year.  This one is a 3 pound cake from Eilenberger's Bakery in Palestine, TX.  I expected this East Texas offering to be about 20% more racist than other fruitcakes, but otherwise I had high hopes.

Packaging & Storage
The Eilenberger fruitcake came in a round, green tin with a turn of the century scene on the lid.  The design is nice, but the tin itself was thin and flimsy.  You can sort of see next to my beer can where the tin was dented in shipping.  So unfortunately, I'm not expecting to get much reuse out of the tin.  This fruitcake didn't come with much direction on storing it, but we learned as we ate it that it actually dried out fairly quickly once it was opened.  Finding a better way to store/seal it might have been helpful.

PXL_20211205_011025509.thumb.jpg.b822a6897cf3c4b801bcf624c93a7939.jpg

PXL_20211205_011939780.thumb.jpg.9c8f8d34731a8cd6bf0acfd2aab1e80c.jpg

PXL_20211210_130028874.thumb.jpg.8c0edb1bad0029a34ea11f4982138295.jpg

Appearance
The top of this fruitcake is absolutely covered with nuts and fruit.  That's not surprising since the first 3 ingredients in the fruitcake are pineapple, pecans and cherries.  It definitely looks delicious inside the tin.

PXL_20211205_011119651.thumb.jpg.1826336f3f7dcf51e9c8ba2235b4c7c3.jpg

PXL_20211205_011259242.thumb.jpg.2a48a9d2294a8bfac2442b4c293b6622.jpg

 

Taste Test
As you'd expect based on the ingredient list, this cake is extremely heavy on the fruit.  So much fruit!  And lots of good sized chunks of nuts.  There's actually so much fruit that the cake can collapse a bit when slicing it, so chilling it might have been a good idea.  This cake has a really good flavor, definitely centered on the fruit.  It's not as dark and complex as Assumption Abbey, but it's not as super sweet as Collin Street.  It's somewhere in between those two.  There's definitely a cake texture to this one, which I prefer.  Because there is so much fruit, the cake tended to crumble a lot and the cake started drying out fairly quickly for some reason.  I was often left with a pile of cake-coated fruit that I was trying to scoop up with my fork (see the second photo below).  It didn't have the moisture to stick back together.  So, overall, the flavor was good but not very complex and there was more crumble than I'd prefer.  My wife really liked the flavor of this one.

PXL_20211205_011715615.thumb.jpg.f2c3fc8fc175fb84d36ff32068d9f5f9.jpg

PXL_20211206_154529833.thumb.jpg.9a602bf5052864c230d3c4aeb7c40cf0.jpg


This was a decent cake, but not my favorite so far.  This one was also quite a bit pricier at $72 (including $15 for shipping), as opposed to ~$37 for Assumption (including shipping).  Collin Street was about $37 last year.  As far as I can tell, Eilenberger only ships through Goldbelly, so there's probably a considerable markup in there.  It's definitely not good enough to justify being twice as expensive as these other fruitcakes.

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On 12/3/2021 at 3:15 PM, fuggled said:

Would any of you be willing to share your recipes?  I've never tried making my own, but think I might want to give it a show someday.

There’s actually only one fruitcake. It just gets mailed around from person to person every year. It has the density of uranium. 

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1 hour ago, fuggled said:

Sorry, it took me a while to eat and review this new fruitcake.  Fortunately, you're not missing too much if you don't get a chance to order one of these this year.

Thanks to a gift from work, I was able to order a new variety of fruitcake from Goldbelly this year.  This one is a 3 pound cake from Eilenberger's Bakery in Palestine, TX.  I expected this East Texas offering to be about 20% more racist than other fruitcakes, but otherwise I had high hopes.

Packaging & Storage
The Eilenberger fruitcake came in a round, green tin with a turn of the century scene on the lid.  The design is nice, but the tin itself was thin and flimsy.  You can sort of see next to my beer can where the tin was dented in shipping.  So unfortunately, I'm not expecting to get much reuse out of the tin.  This fruitcake didn't come with much direction on storing it, but we learned as we ate it that it actually dried out fairly quickly once it was opened.  Finding a better way to store/seal it might have been helpful.

PXL_20211205_011025509.thumb.jpg.b822a6897cf3c4b801bcf624c93a7939.jpg

PXL_20211205_011939780.thumb.jpg.9c8f8d34731a8cd6bf0acfd2aab1e80c.jpg

PXL_20211210_130028874.thumb.jpg.8c0edb1bad0029a34ea11f4982138295.jpg

Appearance
The top of this fruitcake is absolutely covered with nuts and fruit.  That's not surprising since the first 3 ingredients in the fruitcake are pineapple, pecans and cherries.  It definitely looks delicious inside the tin.

PXL_20211205_011119651.thumb.jpg.1826336f3f7dcf51e9c8ba2235b4c7c3.jpg

PXL_20211205_011259242.thumb.jpg.2a48a9d2294a8bfac2442b4c293b6622.jpg

 

Taste Test
As you'd expect based on the ingredient list, this cake is extremely heavy on the fruit.  So much fruit!  And lots of good sized chunks of nuts.  There's actually so much fruit that the cake can collapse a bit when slicing it, so chilling it might have been a good idea.  This cake has a really good flavor, definitely centered on the fruit.  It's not as dark and complex as Assumption Abbey, but it's not as super sweet as Collin Street.  It's somewhere in between those two.  There's definitely a cake texture to this one, which I prefer.  Because there is so much fruit, the cake tended to crumble a lot and the cake started drying out fairly quickly for some reason.  I was often left with a pile of cake-coated fruit that I was trying to scoop up with my fork (see the second photo below).  It didn't have the moisture to stick back together.  So, overall, the flavor was good but not very complex and there was more crumble than I'd prefer.  My wife really liked the flavor of this one.

PXL_20211205_011715615.thumb.jpg.f2c3fc8fc175fb84d36ff32068d9f5f9.jpg

PXL_20211206_154529833.thumb.jpg.9a602bf5052864c230d3c4aeb7c40cf0.jpg


This was a decent cake, but not my favorite so far.  This one was also quite a bit pricier at $72 (including $15 for shipping), as opposed to ~$37 for Assumption (including shipping).  Collin Street was about $37 last year.  As far as I can tell, Eilenberger only ships through Goldbelly, so there's probably a considerable markup in there.  It's definitely not good enough to justify being twice as expensive as these other fruitcakes.

Thanks. And, we had those Mikasa plates at one time, 

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