Find This 1890s Bakery's Classic Holiday Desserts At Costco

Costco has been stepping up its cake game in recent years, with some of its bakery desserts giving even fancy restaurant versions a run for their money. Some of the best pastries you can find at the chain, however, aren't the ones Costco makes itself. If you go through the store's selection of branded cakes, you might spot an old name — a really, really old name — gracing its Cinnamon Coffee Cake: Collin Street Bakery.

The Texas institution, which is well over a century old, offers some of its signature desserts at Costco, and is now selling select items from its iconic holiday catalog. Along with the Cinnamon Coffee Cake, you can also grab Collin Street Bakery's world-famous DeLuxe Fruitcake, Mini Pecan Cake Bundle, Pecan Pie, and Cake Bite Bundle, which includes bite-sized nuggets of fruitcake and pineapple pecan cake. If you're thinking about adding them to your cart on your next shopping trip along with some of Costco's best new items this December, however, you can't — everything but the Cinnamon Coffee Cake can only be ordered online.

Each of the holiday items from Collin Street Bakery are worth trying out, but if you have to get only one thing, make it the DeLuxe Fruitcake — and don't let fruitcake's bad reputation put you off. There's a good reason why the bakery reportedly makes up to 20,000 fruitcakes every day during the holiday season: it's effectively the gold standard of fruitcake, with fans from all over the world ordering it. It's also got a unique place in U.S. history, which shouldn't be too surprising considering how long the business has been around.

Collin Street Bakery was founded back in 1896, along its namesake street in Corsicana, Texas. Its founder, a German immigrant named Augustus "Gus" Weidmann, dreamed of making a living by baking the breads and pastries he'd learned of back in his hometown. One of these recipes was his now-iconic DeLuxe Fruitcake, which has remained largely unchanged over the past 129 years. The only swap made in the past century was that it now uses pecans instead of walnuts; the former was just a lot more abundant in the bakery's area.

By 1906, Collin Street Bakery moved to a second location along Sixth Avenue, and Weidmann's business partner opened up a hotel right above it. Guests popping in and out of Corsicana would often buy the bakery's fruitcakes because they were hardy enough for long-distance trips with little to no refrigeration. In fact, you could revive fruitcake that's been sitting around for years if you needed to, which is why they were so appreciated among travelers back then.

Over the next few years, Collin Street Bakery's fruitcake exploded in popularity — even the famous Ringling Brothers Circus was passing out Weidmann's signature cake to families and friends. Clamor for the fruitcake grew throughout the country, so much so that, in order to cater to the demand, the bakery became one of the United States' earliest mail-order food businesses. This would end up becoming a hallmark of Collin Street Bakery's business model, which is why its fruitcakes are sold across the globe — as well as through Costco's website.