Item Description

Holiday scents and warmth.  Imagine a warm slice with coffee or tea! Beautiful addition to brunch or visits from friends! And do...think about generous slices, wrapped and added to a creative gift bag with cookies, jams, roasted nuts and love.....

"Since 1896 Collin Street Bakery has been making countless generations of fans very happy!  They have many more items posted on their website and are also available in Texas as you travel across the state (with sandwiches and bakery goods at specified stops) and are renowned internationally for the cakes, pies, cookies, cheesecakes and jams they ship!" 

Free shipping!

 Each Medium: 2lbs. 14 oz fruitcake is the perfect balance of native pecans (27%), shelled here in Corsicana, Texas. 

• Hand-picked Golden sweet pineapple and lush papaya, from our own farms in Costa Rica.

• Ripe, red cherries from Oregon and Washington State.

• Pure clover honey, plump golden raisins.

• Refrigerated, the DeLuxe® stays moist and delicious for months. 

Texas Fruitcake & Pecan Cakes From Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas!

www.collinstreet.com  

Historic Downtown Corsicana
401 W 7th Ave
Corsicana, Tx 75110
903-874-7477

Generously donated by Amber McNutt!  Thank you Amber!  You make our auctions even more special!

"Our family-owned-and-operated bakery, located just 50 miles south of Dallas, Texas, has been baking the world-famous DeLuxe® Fruitcake for over 115 years.

The DeLuxe® Texas Fruitcake or Pecan Cake you order today is still baked true to the Old-World recipe brought to Corsicana, Texas from Wiesbaden, Germany in 1896 by master baker Gus Weidmann. He and his partner, Tom McElwee, built a lively business in turn-of-the-century Corsicana which included an elegant hotel on the top floor of the bakery. Many famous guests enjoyed their fine hospitality including Enrico Caruso, Will Rogers, John J. McGraw, "Gentleman Jim" Corbett and John Ringling.

In fact, the bakery was thrust into the mail order business when Mr. Ringling's circus troupe, upon tasting the mouth-watering DeLuxe® Texas Fruitcake, Pecan cake asked to have these Christmas Cakes sent to family and friends throughout Europe. And so began an international Christmas gift tradition.

We are mail order specialists, and whether your order is for one cake or 1,000, we make sure it is sent exactly as requested. Many years of experience, coupled with our decorative holiday tin and protective shipping carton, ensure your gift will arrive in perfect condition anywhere in the world, fresh delivery guaranteed."

Item Special Note

The Collin Street Bakery Story

For true fruitcake connoisseurs, 1896 was a banner year for it marked the first year of the Original DeLuxe®, "that famous Corsicana, Texas Fruitcake." The grand-tasting DeLuxe®, whose recipe had traveled 6,000 miles from Wiesbaden, Germany, was introduced to this little Texas town by a gentle German baker named August Weidmann.

And if history had left the rest to Gus, this cake's reputation might never have gotten past the city limits. Happily, though, history brought him a wealthy partner and master salesman named Tom McElwee.

The shy, perfectionist Gus Weidmann ran his little kitchen in this newly formed Collin Street Bakery and made ready for the busy Christmas seasons.  At the same time, Tom McElwee was sending out letters, making sales trips, and lining up an ever-growing list of Bakery customers.

They made a nice team and enjoyed such success that their once anonymous DeLuxe® Texas Fruitcake and Pecan Cake became a delicacy to be sought after by folks from every corner of the globe.

In 1906, after outgrowing the original Collin Street Bakery in its tenth year, Tom and Gus put up a structure of such ambitious size that Tom was able to make its whole second floor into an elite private hotel. Only a flamboyant patron of the Corsicana Opera House could have pulled it off.  One like Tom, who was accustomed to attracting the nation's best performers to this oil and rail center, home of the first two oil strikes west of the Mississippi.

Interestingly, Mobil and Texaco were both founded here in Corsicana!  Tom formed instant friendships with the visiting celebrities and made sure that every guest who boarded the outbound train had an extra cake in his travel trunk.

Folks who worked at the Bakery then remember getting glimpses of Will Rogers, Enrico Caruso, "Terrible Tempered" John McGraw and "Gentleman" Jim Corbett. They remember the great John Ringling and tell of the afternoon when Ringling's whole circus traipsed over and ordered Christmas cakes for circus friends in every corner of the world (the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus buys DeLuxe® Fruitcakes to this day!). It brought a few nostalgic sighs when Tom McElwee's glamorous diggings were transformed, room by room, into an arena of executives and clerks and jangling phones. But prosperity clears its own path. The Collin Street Bakery was getting waist-deep in a new and thriving mail-order business.

Though Tom McElwee and Gus Weidmann died less than a year apart, the management of the Collin Street Bakery passed smoothly into experienced hands. Nothing fundamental in its operation has changed. Cakes are still baked to order and shipped direct from Corsicana, Texas. And our Bakery officers still personally handle every order the Bakery receives. Moreover, the present-day operation is far from lacking in color and drama.  This year alone we will ship Texas Fruitcakes, pecan cakes, and other delicious pastries to 196 foreign lands.