The Fruitcake Lady

The joke goes that there really is just one fruitcake that gets passed around all over the world, the most "recycled" gift in the world. The butt of many jokes, fruitcakes nonethe-less have withstood the test of time–and taste–and remain a fixture of the holiday table.

So who has the last laugh now?

For one thing, fruitcakes have a long shelf life. What other edible gift would still be good enough to eat when you raid the fridge a year later?

Like wine, it gets better with age, believes Beling Cajucom, who has been baking fruitcakes since the 1960s. Her fruitcakes are so famous they don’t need a brand name, but are simply known as the "Cajucom cake."

Cajucom blames the fruitcake’s bad reputation partly on how fruitcakes are made these days.

"Fruitcakes these days are not fruitcakes. It’s just cake and it’s dry," she laments, as she serves her Christmas treat.

"You know why making this is difficult? Because I chop the fruits piece by piece, mix it all up then I bake it…see the fruits?"

Cajucom prefers patience over the convenience of using a grinder, recalling that when she tried using the mechanical device, the fruits came out "all powdery."

"That’s why I always ask people to give me at least a week because I have to marinate it before baking the cake," she points out. "I want them to really taste the fruits."

Just like any other fruitcake, the Cajucom cake has prunes, dates, walnuts and glazed fruit, which preserves the cake. But what makes it different from your ordinary cake is that there are quality fruits in it, and Cajucom ensures that it comes out moist. "It takes two hours in the oven. I bake then I steam so it’s not dry," she explains.

"I can make four in each baking because my oven is only an apartment size," she adds. Despite this limitation, Cajucom has managed to deliver on time–in two weeks to be exact–all 170 fruitcakes ordered mostly by her family and friends, plus some "referrals."

On the average, she bakes some 200 fruitcakes for the holidays every year. She doesn’t like being rushed, which is why the orders come as early as October.

"I have to buy the best kind of fruits. Dates are so difficult to find. Prunes are easy to buy and walnuts, but I want it fresh. I get the fruits by the pail in Quiapo," Cajucom shares.

Fruitcakes have been around a long time, dating back to ancient Roman times.

In the Middle Ages, honey, spices and preserved fruits were added to the ancient Roman ingredients of pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins, and it was first called "fruitcake."

What makes fruitcakes special is that it is saturated in brandy or rum.

Cajucom puts in just the right amount of rum in her fruitcake; in the case of brandy, she lets her customers decide if they want it. "Some don’t want it. And it’s a bit more expensive if there’s brandy."

A grandmother of six, Cajucom says her fruitcakes have never been about business and she doesn’t give it a "brand name." Her fruitcakes sell for P550 each, while the bigger ones cost P750. "But smaller ones are more popular," she says.

She started baking fruitcakes in the 1960s as a gift, but it was only in the 70s, she says, when she began to take orders.

A former equestrienne, Cajucom’s friends at the Manila Polo Club would ask her to bake fruitcakes for them. "They would order and they would say ‘Beling, I want 25 more,’ and that’s how it started."

She doesn’t recall why fruitcakes became her specialty, since she also bakes other popular treats like food for the gods, buttercakes and chocolate cakes.

Pacita Roces, wife of former Manila Chronicle publisher Chino Roces, got Cajucom started with her baking. "She said to me, Beling, you can do that. So I went. You know that night I was dreaming of cakes," she chuckles.

Cajucom’s mother prodded her to take lessons from her friend Mameng Cuyugan. "I did not want to at first then I got interested. I still have the recipe of the chocolate cake I first made."

In the nearly 50 years that she has been making fruitcakes, Cajucom proudly notes that she has not gotten complaints–except for this one customer who told her that the fruitcake did not taste the same.

"So I said, send it back to me, but I did not get it back so I did not know what was wrong with it," she says. "No one has complained. On the contrary, they would always ask for more."

Cajucom has two children–a son in the States and a daughter in Manila. After her husband passed away in 1997, she moved from her home in Quezon City to Cainta. Her trusted helper Merlie stays with her, drives her around and helps her with sourcing ingredients and baking. "You have to have help," she advises.

Another fruitcake joke has to do with its longevity, and travels well, even by mail. So why do fruitcakes make ideal gifts? Because the postal service has been unable to find a way to damage them.

The Cajucom cake has reached as far as the U.S. and Portugal. When she was in Los Angeles visiting her sister, she recalls making fruitcakes for her friends there.

"My nieces in the States would also ask me to send them fruitcakes when someone’s coming over from Manila. They say they don’t like the ones made there," she says.

In all these years of baking fruitcakes, Cajucom has stuck to one recipe. She says she lost a recipe for a white fruitcake, but notes that while she could experiment with other concoctions, what people want is the same Cajucom cake she has been making.

"It’s the same recipe as the one I used the first time I baked a fruitcake," she notes.

When she isn’t baking, she plays bridge weekly with her friends, takes walks for exercise exercise, and rescues stray cats and dogs from the streets.

"I have two dogs, a mini pinscher and a fox terrier, and four cats," she says, as she looks for Whitey, the all-white cat she found at a gas station. "I saw him running around. So I got him and sent him to the veterinarian. In my other house I have 12 dogs and 16 cats. My daughter would also pick up stray cats."

Even though other Christmas treats have become popular, fruitcakes remain a Christmas staple. Thus Cajucom still sees herself baking fruitcakes for the holidays in years to come.

"It’s a hobby. It helps me and it’s nice to have something like this to do," she says, and adds with a laugh,"In the bridge group I have made a lot of good friends whom I have kept until they died. I don’t know why I haven’t died yet!"