THE SUPREME FRUITCAKE

How the Scotts changed people’s minds about this oft-maligned classic

- KATHLEEN PURVIS

WHEN BERTA LOU SCOTT WAS A LITTLE GIRL IN THE 1930s, SHE LOVED ALL THE THINGS her mother baked for Christmas-except fruitcake. Too dry, too filled with candied things, not enough nuts. Today, Berta Lou is North Carolina's queen of fruitcake.

Yes, we know-a lot of you think you don't like this dessert, but that means you haven't had Southern Supreme fruitcake. It's not made like any other version, and it doesn't taste like the others either. The cake part is moist with a caramelized flavor, and it has a lot more nuts than fruit.

Berta Lou's family (including two of her four children and three of their spouses, plus a good number of her eight grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren) has turned fruitcakes into a booming business. The Scotts ship them all over the country and across the globe, even to France. People come by the thousands to the Southern Supreme factory and retail shop in Bear Creek, North Carolina, which isn't an easy journey. It's down a long country road, 10 miles southeast of Siler City and 49 miles from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. If you can't make the trip, the cakes are carried at The Fresh Market during the holiday season, at some specialty stores, and by mail order. Her son Randy Scott says, "When we started, we sold them out of Mama's living room. You can't plan this. It just evolves." Berta Lou was 17 when she married her late husband, Hoyt Scott, who spent all his life in three houses within a mile or so of their factory on the stretch of pavement named for him, Hoyt Scott Road, in Bear Creek. She was "a foreigner," her family jokes: She grew up 3 or 4 miles away. They raised their kids (Randy, Ricky, Belinda, and Sandy) on Hoyt Scott Road. Hoyt worked for a company making iron stoves, while Berta Lou set up a beauty salon in their garage, where she cut and styled women's hair for 30 years.