This Brooklyn Bakery Created A Mountain-Dew Themed Holiday Cake

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — The recipe for Park Slope bakery Four & Twenty Blackbirds' latest creation may at first seem to be your typical fruit cake. That is, until you reach ingredient number six—a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew.

Mountain Dew Merry Mash-up flavor, to be exact.

But the out of the ordinary addition to the holiday fruitcake is actually the star of the dish. The Brooklyn-based pie shop teamed up with Mountain Dew to create a cake featuring its limited-edition holiday flavor.

The idea was to create a cake that, like the cranberry-pomegranate soda, would bring together two seemingly dissimilar things to create something delicious, Mountain Dew representative Jack Barbour said. And the fruitcake, typically the punchline of the season, made the perfect canvas for reinvention.

"We love this concept of a mash-up," Barbour said. "We were trying to think of quirky holiday traditions that align with that concept and (everybody knows) fruitcake's reputation. Four & Twenty Blackbirds were our first choice because of their reputation for taking traditional items and reintroducing new flavors."

The soda-themed cake is the first time the company itself has stepped into the baking world, Barbour said, but definitely not the first time Mountain Dew has been used as an ingredient. The idea was partly inspired by an online culture of Mountain Dew-lovers who try out baking with the various soda flavors.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds' owners Melissa and Emily Elsen were quick to say yes to the challenge.

The sisters started with a traditional fruitcake recipe, but made sure to highlight the Mountain Dew flavors by adding both fresh and dry cranberries and using a syrup to get pomegranate flavor, Melissa said. The texture of the cake took some trial and error, but with some experimentation the pair were able to create a "cakey" texture that still had a bit of the density fruitcake is known for.

And to top it off, a glaze made from the soda to give it the signature Mountain Dew Merry Mash-up red color.

"It was a fun challenge because we all know fruitcake's reputation, but there's no reason that it couldn't be delicious if the components are put together correctly," Melissa Elsen said.

Only 100 of the limited-edition cakes were made — and given out to some of Mountain Dew's biggest well-known fans — but the recipe is available for customers to try it at home.

Soda enthusiasts who got their own care package with the creation include NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr., NBA athlete Jaren Jackson Jr. and even Channing Tatum, who had one of his first acting jobs in a Mountain Dew commercial in 2002.

"They loved it and each had their own quirky way of sharing it with their followers," Barbour said. The feedback was pretty positive across the board."

Creating signature baked good with other Mountain Dew flavors might become a new tradition, he added.

Check out the recipe here:

Photos by Ben Hider