HEISLER, Alta. – Christmas cakes, the heavy bricks of dessert filled with chopped fruit and soaked in rum, have been a Christmas tradition for years, but try finding anyone who has time to make them anymore.
Val Wolbeck is the exception. The mother of four and owner of Val’s Country Café bakes 500 fruit cakes every holiday season in between cooking meals for the café, serving coffee and running her catering business.
“I wish there was more of me to go around,” Wolbeck said while eating a piece of Christmas cake during a break in her central Alberta cafe.
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After baking thousands of Christmas cakes, Wolbeck said she still enjoys a slice of her creations.
Wolbeck has a theory that those in their 40s or older hold onto the tradition of eating fruitcake at Christmas while those younger than 40 don’t like the traditional dessert.
“It’s a tradition,” said Wolbeck, who noted neither her husband, Ken, nor her children will eat Christmas cake.
To try and tap into that younger market, Wolbeck has thought about making modern Christmas cakes. She’s heard of a Black Forest Christmas cake, but has yet to find the recipe. She does special-order cakes for diabetics and those allergic to nuts.
On a busy day Wolbeck has made up to 75 cakes in a single day starting at 8 a.m. and ending well after midnight, but on a normal day she makes about 30 in between cooking lunches and the regular restaurant fare.
“I don’t know anyone else that makes Christmas cakes.”
Wolbeck tried several recipes before she settled on a dark rum-flavoured cake and a light coconut and almond-flavoured cake. She made her first Christmas cake for her sister’s wedding and hasn’t stopped.
“There is a market out there for good fruitcakes.”
For Christmas she also makes shortbread, butter tarts and almond bark for customers who want a short cut to Christmas baking.
Wolbeck said she is tempted to expand, but it’s difficult working out of the hotel built in 1925 by the Kroetsch family, the original settlers of Heisler. She has to adjust the oven temperature with a wrench and use a manual thermometer to set the temperature.
“I’d like to do more, but then I’d have to hire more people,” said Wolbeck, who took over the café eight years ago when she was looking for something to do in the small town of 190 people.
The biggest employers are the nearby Luscar mine, the Atco power plant and nearby farms.
Wolbeck and her sister had operated a catering company so it wasn’t a big leap to take over the local restaurant. Wolbeck still does catering and about half her income comes from cooking for local events. She has 500 pounds of cabbage in her freezer ready to be made into cabbage rolls during the busy Christmas season.
Wrapping the cabbage around the rice or hamburger is an art passed down from her grandmother and mother. Cabbage rolls are requested at most of the events she caters at Christmas.
“I live here from now until Christmas,” she said, from her restaurant kitchen.
