I actually like fruitcake. (It's true!) Do you have a great recipe?

[HealthyWealthyWise]

I feel like I may the only person in North America who actually likes fruitcake, but I'll say it: I like fruitcake! Especially if they have been soaked in rum or something else. That said, I haven't yet found a great recipe. Does anyone have a recipe they love? Thank you!

 

[Trellum]

Hi there! I like fruitcake as well I don't make it ever year tho But last year I tried this recipe: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Cake/fruitcakeRegal.htm I liked it!

 

[JessiFox]

Well you're certainly not the ONLY one I'm sure, I know a few fruitcake lovers myself, but I've actually never had it. I guess the kind of universal hate for it made me uninterested and I never really gave it any thought before but I suppose I should try it before I write it off altogether. Thanks for the little reminder of its existence . lol

 

[ACSAPA]

I like homemade fruitcake well enough. I just don't like the petrified bricks of fruitcake that they sell at Walmart. I might try making my own since it tastes better when it's fresh.

 

[ACSAPA]

Well you're certainly not the ONLY one I'm sure, I know a few fruitcake lovers myself, but I've actually never had it. I guess the kind of universal hate for it made me uninterested and I never really gave it any thought before but I suppose I should try it before I write it off altogether. Thanks for the little reminder of its existence . lol

These fruitcake cookies are supposed to be lighter and easier to make than actual fruitcake and they have no raisins, which is a plus in my book.

http://joandsue.blogspot.ca/2012/12/fruitcake-cookies.html

 

[sweetkymom]

I don't like fruitcake but I have plenty of family that loves the things. My husbands aunt makes them homemade every year.

 

[JessiFox]

These fruitcake cookies are supposed to be lighter and easier to make than actual fruitcake and they have no raisins, which is a plus in my book.

http://joandsue.blogspot.ca/2012/12/fruitcake-cookies.html

Hmm...well lighter definitely sounds like a good thing, it seems a lot of people complain about it being too heavy and dense- maybe even brick like? lol. I'm just as well with the lack of raisins, too. Thanks for the link

 

[Ferruccio]

Hi,
I like very much two types of fruit cakes,

This

or this

or this

Ciao

 

[tangela]

So the holidays are coming around in the US and I honestly don't understand why people don't like fruit cakes. I mean I know some of them can be REALLY REALLY bad but I've had some that were pretty good!

And I wonder if "fruit cake" is different by country because the one that Ferruccio gave is COMPLETELY different than the ones in the U.S.

 

[kammy]

I must say fruit cakes is one of my favorite cakes and i look forward to baking them especially when it's the Christmas season.



INGREDIENTS

• Fruit Mixture:
• 1 pound mixed candied fruit, chopped (See Note)
• 2 ounces candied ginger, chopped fine
• 1/2 pound seedless raisins
• 1/2 pound golden seedless raisins
• 1/2 pound dried currants
• 1/4 pound candied cherries, coarsely chopped (save 4 whole cherries for decoration, if you like)
• 1/4 pound shelled walnuts or pecans, finely chopped (save 8 halves for decoration, if you like)
• Finely grated rind of 2 lemons
• 1/2 cup orange marmalade
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup brandy or orange juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• .
• Cake Mixture:
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon mace
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 pound butter or margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 eggs

• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 255 minutes

• Total Time: 275 minutes

PREPARATION
Place candied fruit, ginger, raisins, currants, cherries, walnuts or pecans, lemon rind, orange marmalade, lemon juice, brandy or orange juice, vanilla, and almondextract in a large bowl, toss well, cover, and let stand overnight at room temperature.

Grease, then line bottom of a 10-inch tube pan with wax paper. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

Sift together twice the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, allspice, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.

Cream butter until light, add sugar gradually, and continue creaming until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add to dry ingredients, about 1 cup at a time, beating just to blend. (Note: Unless you have an extra-large mixing bowl, you will have to transfer batter to a large kettle at this point.) Mix in the fruit mixture. Spoon batter into pan and, if you wish, decorate top with halved candied cherries and walnuts. Place on center oven rack; half fill a roasting pan with water and place on rack below. Bake, uncovered, 4-1/4 hours until cake shrinks slightly from sides of pan and a metal skewer inserted midway between edge and central tube comes out clean.

Cool cake upright in pan on wire rack 1 hour. Carefully turn out, peel off wax paper, turn right-side-up, and cool thoroughly. Wrap in brandy- or rum-soaked cheesecloth, then in foil, and store in an airtight container about 3 weeks to ripen. If you wish to store the fruitcake longer, sprinkle cheesecloth wrapping with 2 to 3 tablespoons brandy or rum at 3-week intervals.

 

[wahmed]

The one I make is from food.com

• ounces sweetened flaked coconut
• 8ounces chopped sugar rolled dates
• 16ounces pecan pieces
• 8ounces candied cherries
• 8ounces diced candied pineapple
• 2(14 ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Place coconut, dates, and pecan pieces in a very large (7 quart or larger) bowl. With your hands break up chunks of dates & coconut, and stir those 3 ingredients together.
2. Add the cherries, pineapple, and sweetened condensed milk. Stir thoroughly. (I wear non-powdered surgical gloves, and stir it with my hands because the mixture is very stiff.).
3. Let set at room temperature while you prepare the pans. Spray 2 - 9"x5" loaf pans with Pam. Line the pans with waxed (or parchment) paper. (We cut parchment paper in 4 1/4"x 16 1/4" strips for this. You want the paper to come up past the short sides of the pans after the mixture is packed into the pans.) Now spray the paper (after you've pressed it into the pans) with Pam.
4. Stir the ingredients well again.Divide the ingredients equally between the 2 loaf pans.
5. Pack VERY TIGHTLY and smoothly into the pans. (I wet my hands & press, pack down, & smooth top, using both hands. Wetting your hands keeps them from sticking to "batter".).
6. Place the pans on the middle rack of the oven and bake at 300 degrees F for 1 hour, or until lightly browned. (If the cakes have baked for an hour, or look a little brown around the edges, take them out of the oven & lift edges of paper a little to see if sides look brown enough. If they're brown on sides, but not on top, you may broil the tops for a few minutes-watch carefully.).
7. Remove cakes from oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pans.
8. Gently lift the edges of the paper a couple of times on each side - kind of a rocking motion. (Sometimes I have to run a sharp knife down the edges of the pan.) Turn pans upside down onto a paper-lined cookie sheet. Lift pans from the cakes. Remove paper from bottom of cakes IMMEDIATELY.
9. Let cool completely. Place in a large container (don't wrap yet) and refrigerate overnight.
10. Turn cake upside down to slice. After slicing, wrap in waxed (or parchment) paper, then in heavy duty aluminum foil.
11. May be refrigerated up to 3 months or frozen up to 1 year.

I've made it a few times now. My mmother-in-law loves fruit cake and I hated it. But this recipe made me love it. This makes 2 loaves so halve it for 1. Let me know how it turns out

 

[Winterybella]

There seems to be so many variations to the fruit cake depending on where you are in the world. Wahmed's recipe must be the simplest I have ever seen. Our local fruit cake is a big thing at Christmas time and has to be set for months I think. I have never considered trying it as it requires too much work. Here is a good idea of what's involved.

http://soveryverythankfulblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/bajan-christmas-fruit-cake-black-cake.html

 

[connie]

I have a family favourite fruit cake recipe. It is solid fruit, not one of the sponge cakes with fruit in it. I don't add alcohol because I don't like it, and don't like excluding people from eating it, but there is no reason as to why you can't add some if you want. I do sometimes soak the fruit in dry cider if I can't get hold of dry apple juice, but any alcohol will evaporate whilst cooking.

Fruit Cake
You will need plenty of time and patience if you want to pick over the fruit like I do and you will need to start the day before you want to bake the cake, but it is worth it!

Ingredients
1,800g sultanas, raisins and currants (total weight - so if you don't like currants, don't use currants!)
1 bottle dry apple juice
175g softened butter
75g molasses (sugar)
100g dark brown soft sugar
2-3 tbsp black molasses (not treacle)
175g plain wholemeal flour
100g ground almonds
5 large eggs
1 large lemon, rind and juice of.
1 tsp mixed spices
100g chopped roasted nuts
100g whole hazelnuts
200g glace cherries
300g sour cherries
100g blanched whole almonds

Method
Rinse the 1.8kg of dried fruit briefly under boiling water (this gets rid of any wax & sugar that has been added to the fruit to make it look more glossy) and put into a large bowl, add the apple juice and cover, leave overnight, mixing up occasionally.
Drain the fruit that was soaking overnight.
Cream the butter with the sugar very thoroughly until fluffy and golden.
Slowly add the black molasses to the cream and continue to whisk.
Sift the flour with the mixed spices into a bowl.
Add one tablespoon of flour and 1 tbs of ground almonds per egg to the cream and mix well, but try to avoid curdling. Add more flour if needed.
When all of the eggs are added to the mixture, add the remaining flour and blend well.
Mix in the lemon juice, lemon rind and chopped nuts & whole hazelnuts (but not the whole almonds).
Wash the glace cherries in boiling water and chop into quarters with scissors, retaining 1 whole cherry before adding to the fruit.
Now stir in the flour mixture, so that all of the fruit has a thin coating - it will cover all of the fruit.
You need an 8” round cake tin which needs to be double lined (with greaseproof paper) and greased with a nut oil such as hazelnut or groundnut oil. Ensure that the lining has a good overlap above the tin.
Set the oven to 140C (275F or Gas Mark 1) and press the mixture into the tin. Take your time, it will all fit.
Hollow out the middle so it is about 1-1.5 inches below that of the outer edges; now add the blanched almonds in a spiral pattern over the top with a glace cherry in the centre.
Cook for 3½ - 5 hours (or so). Use the knife test to check the centre is cooked.
Leave in the cake tin until completely cold before removing.
Wrap in layers of greaseproof paper and then tin foil until well and truely air tight before storing.

 

[Winterybella]

I am intrigued by all these different recipes but I also have to say I also find them quite intimidating. I love simple recipes especially as I am not a pro and when I see that something calls for so many things, I get scared about wanting to try it myself.

It also looks as though my local recipe is the only one that require months of preparation.

 

[ReadmeByAmy]

My family love fruit cake also. Since we are only buying it at a bakeshop, I have a plan on how to make a homemade fruitcake for this coming holiday season. And I am really looking for the right recipe. Thank you guys for sharing some of your recipes and their links and I'll check on this.

 

[Winterybella]

My family love fruit cake also. Since we are only buying it at a bakeshop, I have a plan on how to make a homemade fruitcake for this coming holiday season. And I am really looking for the right recipe. Thank you guys for sharing some of your recipes and their links and I'll check on this.

Once you make a decision I would be happy to know which recipe you opted for. I can't help but be fascinated by the varying recipes which I believe represent different cultures. A true potpourri recipes. I am still waiting for more.

 

[connie]

It also looks as though my local recipe is the only one that require months of preparation.

Not quite.
If you want to add alcohol to the cake, then any fruit cake will take months of prep.

With mine, you need to start the night before you cook the cake at the very minimum. I actually prefer to pick over the dried fruit and remove any stalks & stones from the sultanas, currants and raisins. The result is that I spend the best part of the day previously sitting on the sitting room floor with a pot of hotish water, a bowl of fruit I have picked over, and bowl of fruit I haven't picked over, a small bowl with a surprising amount of stalks & stones and very sticky hands, watching several films because it takes me hours and hours to pick over the fruit.

I also prefer to let the cake mature after it has been cooked. But this only requires me wrapping the cake up, ensuring it is airtight and putting it away somewhere for at least a month before it is eaten.

As a rule, when I am making this as a Christmas Cake, I will ensure I have made it before the end of October each year!

So mine also take months of prep!

 

[joycemcgregor]

Ferruccio: the pictures of your 2 fruitcakes look so delicious. And Kammy: Your recipe sounds yummy. I am a fruitcake lover. I like a thin slice with my coffee in the morning. It just seems to be a good start to my day. I will eat any kind of fruitcake be it home made or store bought although I prefer home made. I used to make this fruitcake years ago and it was really good:

Orange Candy Slice Fruitcake

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 cups applesauce
4 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 pound candy orange slices
2 cups chopped pecans
2 cups flaked coconut
1-1/2 cups candied cherries
1 package (8 ounces) chopped dates
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the applesauce, eggs and buttermilk. In a large bowl, combine the orange slices, pecans, coconut, cherries, dates and 1 cup of flour; toss to coat. Combine the baking soda, salt and remaining flour; add to the buttermilk mixture. Fold in orange slice mixture.
2. Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. tube pan. Bake at 300° for 1-3/4 to 2 hours or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely
3. .Yield: 10-12 servings

I made a glaze with 1 cup of powdered sugar and a couple of tablespoons of orange juice, then pocked holes in the top of the cake and drizzled the glaze over the cake.