The fruitcake is the butt of many holiday jokes, but it also has one of the longest histories among seasonal desserts. The earliest recorded recipe dates to ancient Rome, and mail-order fruitcakes in America began in 1913, according to Wikipedia.
Every January, a Colorado town gives the cake a very different job. In Manitou Springs, locals throw it.
A recipe from ancient Rome
The Wikipedia entry on fruitcake says the earliest recorded recipe came from ancient Rome. It mixed pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins into barley mash.
The entry also notes that a fruitcake with plenty of alcohol can be preserved for many years, and that wrapping one in alcohol-soaked linen is a way to extend its shelf life. That long keeping time helps explain the cake’s reputation as a gift that sits in a cupboard.
One example is a fruitcake baked in 1878 that a family in Tecumseh, Michigan, has kept ever since. As of 2019, the baker’s great-great-granddaughter was its custodian, according to Wikipedia.
The fruitcake has relatives, too. Wikipedia says Dundee cake originated in Scotland and is named for Keiller’s marmalade, and it says Duke Albert III was among those who lobbied for an exemption that led to the 1491 Dresdner Stollen recipe. Both are rich, fruit-filled holiday cakes.
Mail order begins in 1913
Wikipedia says mail-order fruitcakes in America began in 1913. Two bakeries became known for shipping them. Collin Street Bakery is in Corsicana, Texas, and the Claxton Bakery is in Claxton, Georgia.
The bakeries’ own histories add detail. Wikipedia’s Collin Street Bakery entry says the Texas company was founded in 1896 and ties its entry into mail order to a 1914 Ringling Brothers Circus order, so the exact start of fruitcake shipping depends on which account is used. The entry says the bakery makes about 3 million pounds of fruitcake each year, or 1.5 million individual cakes, and ships its DeLuxe Fruitcake to all countries except Cuba and Iran.
The Georgia company has a different path. Wikipedia’s Claxton Bakery entry says it was founded by Savino Gillio-Tos, who sold it in 1945 to an employee, Albert Parker. Under Parker the bakery focused on fruitcakes and began fundraising sales in the 1950s, and local Civitans have sold the cake since 1951.
The holiday table has long carried fruitcake. A Library of Congress blog post on its baking collections includes a 1939 photograph of Brig. Gen. Edwin Watson accepting a fruit cake for President Roosevelt from Miss Mildred Cook. The post calls it a “Christmas cake” and describes it as “nothing short of spectacular.”
Fruitcake sits among a family of holiday breads. A guide to Christmas breads families bake around the world shows how many cultures have a rich, fruit-studded loaf for the season, and a list of vintage Christmas decorations from grandparents’ homes covers the rest of the old-fashioned holiday.
Readers decorating for the season can also browse sourcing and decorating with vintage Christmas decorations. Hosts expecting company may want to compare Keurig and Ninja coffee makers for holiday guests, and a piece on vacuums to get the house guest-ready covers the cleanup before visitors arrive.
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Manitou Springs and the Great Fruitcake Toss
Wikipedia says the Great Fruitcake Toss has been held in Manitou Springs, Colorado, since 1995. The town’s event page says it began with locals throwing fruitcakes in the park, though another line on the same page says 1996.
The event page lists the next toss as January 30, 2027, from noon to 3 p.m. at Memorial Park, 502 Manitou Avenue. The page’s structured data still shows a 2026 date, so anyone planning to attend should confirm the day with the town. Wikipedia describes the toss as a first-Saturday-of-January event, while the town’s page now points to the last Saturday of the month.
Wikipedia puts the all-time record at 1,420 feet, set in January 2007 by eight Boeing engineers.
How the toss works
Tickets cost $1 each, plus $1 to rent a fruitcake. A $5 package gets 4 tickets, and a canned good brings 1 ticket, up to 10 per family. The canned goods go to the Manitou Springs Food Pantry, according to KOAA.
The event page lists several contests. In distance, each throw uses one cake and one ticket, and the farthest toss in each age group wins. Basketcake gives 3 cake tosses for one ticket, with points for cakes that stay in baskets. Balance is a race carrying a cake on a spatula, and a dropped cake gives the racer 5 seconds to get back in.
Accuracy asks tossers to hit hoops from growing distances. Ages 10 and under start at 5 feet and ages 11 and older start at 10 feet, and a second miss eliminates the tosser. A bake-off requires flour, nuts and fruit in each cake.
What happens to the cakes
KOAA reports that the rental cakes contain no preservatives and are given to local farm animals after the event. It also reports that the 30th annual toss was held in early February 2025 after weather delayed it from the usual late January date.
The event page lists Collin Street Bakery as the presenting sponsor, which ties the toss back to the Texas mail-order bakery.
Why the cake endures
Fruitcake has survived centuries of jokes because it never stopped being made. Roman cooks, a Michigan family keeping a cake from 1878, two mail-order bakeries and a Colorado park full of tossers have each kept it going in a different way.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: TheMightyGrog – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons
