Some monasteries make jelly, creamed honey, even world-class beer. For the last 25 years, the Trappist monks of Assumption Abbey in the foothills of the Ozarks have made fruitcake. They're less ...

When the monks bake at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, the bees hover outside the kitchen windows, drawn by the heady scent of warm maple syrup. This time of year, orders for holiday ...

AVA, Mo. -- When the monks of Assumption Abbey could no longer support themselves by producing cement blocks, they decided to make fruitcake. Fifteen years and thousands of cakes later, there is no ...

AVA, Mo. – Once the bane of pot-luck parties, the fruitcake has been turned into a sought-after treat by Trappist monks secluded in the Missouri Ozarks who some say bake cake that's nothing short of ...

Fruitcake orders are entered into the computer at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va. on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. The monks here have been baking and selling fruitcake since the 1980s. The bake from ...

2000-11-28 04:00:00 PDT Ava, Mo.-- On this autumn morning, when the chapel bell tolls, a moonlit mist shrouds the monks' cloister in the thick woods of the Ozarks. Just before the "Great Silence" ends ...

AVA, Mo. (AP) — Once the bane of pot-luck parties, the fruitcake has been turned into a sought-after treat by Trappist monks secluded in the Missouri Ozarks who some say bake cake that’s nothing short ...

AVA, Mo. — Off the hilly blacktop and down a red dirt drive, fog sits in the Ozark pine forest. It’s early. It’s 3:15 in the morning early. Someone pulls a rope and a bell tolls. Inside an old ...

AVA, Mo. - Like their brethren elsewhere, the Trappist monks of Assumption Abbey are a quiet bunch. They live and work in mostly silent contemplation, seldom speaking. They pray seven times a day, ...

AVA, Mo. (RNS) Some monasteries make jelly, creamed honey, even world-class beer. For the last 25 years, the Trappist monks of Assumption Abbey here in the foothills of the Ozarks have made fruitcake.

The monks at in Ava, Mo., were making concrete blocks when Father Cyprian Harrison joined the order in 1965. As demand for the blocks waned, the order explored other options to support the men who ...