Delights and Indulgences

Food may be the furthest thing from your mind after yesterday, but with the end of thanksgiving comes the true beginning of the Christmas season, regardless of what retailers have been stocking their shelves with for weeks and months at this point. With that in mind, we’re bypassing the Christmas gifts for today in order to focus in on a Christmas treat. On a stroll around World Showcase, tucked away in a corner of Germany, we found a traditional fruit cake.

Okay, now I know some of you think I’ve gone around the bend and have already shut this article down, but what I’m talking about is fruit cake in its traditional form. It’s called Stollen, and it has about as much to do with the heavy, syrupy bricks we know as fruit cake as Christmas has to do with Independence Day. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the slices served up at the Prost kiosk in Epcot.

Let’s start with the Stollen basics. The bread is low in sugar content, and gets its flavor from the cinnamon, cardamom, orange zest, and other spices that are worked in. Don’t get confused, this is definitely a sweet treat, but that sweetness comes from the nuts and candied fruits baked into the loaf and the sugar icing that coasts the outside of the finished fruit cake.

So, how does Prost’s Stollen stack up? It was dryer than I expected, but that may come from the fact that there the only candied fruits in this version were raisins. There were also no nuts to be found. I would have preferred some almonds and candied orange peel, personally, but this was a fine example of how to do a fruit cake right. The sugary topping give the bread all the sweetness it really needs, and the spices are right out of any Christmas cookbook.

The not too sweet, not overly heavy fruit cake from Prost is a win in my book. The Stollen is a great introduction to the more traditional side of Chirstmas baking. I would recommend making sure you have something to drink alongside the fruit cake, to combat the dryness that can be present. Luckily for us, the Prost marketplace has a great selection of beverages fit for the young and young at heart. The next time you think all fruit cakes are the same, just remember that there is a tasty alternative out there, just waiting for you to venture through World Showcase and give it a try!