POINT CLEAR, Ala. — For decades, fruitcake has carried an unfair reputation as the holiday punchline no one wants to unwrap. But on Alabama’s Eastern Shore, one family kitchen turns that trope completely upside down.
Inside Miss Colleen’s historic 1897 Victorian home along Scenic Highway 98, holiday baking at Punta Clara Kitchen starts long before the winter chill sets in. By late summer and early autumn, all hands are on deck to produce hundreds of pounds of the shop’s signature, heirloom holiday fruitcake.
The confections rely on a century-old recipe passed down from Grandma Bessie Brodbeck—mother of Dorothy “Dot” Pacey, who founded Punta Clara Kitchen in 1952. Unlike the mass-produced, brick-like cakes often joked about at Christmas, Punta Clara’s cakes are built on a rich white batter packed with local pecans from neighboring farms, glacé cherries, and pineapple…