About Classic Christmas Fruit Cake
In India, the tradition of baking a fruit cake on Christmas packed with alcohol-soaked dry fruits came with the British. Ever since it has become a popular Christmas food tradition. Christmas Fruit Cake is known as rum cake or plum cake in many parts of India. This fruit cake is like a warm, comforting granny’s hug that will remind you of the Holiday Season for many, many upcoming days. The chill of winter and the festive Christmas lights give meaning, purpose, and the right reason to indulge in this warm, earthy, spicy, slightly bitter fruit cake. For me, The BEST Classic Fruit Cake:
contain eggsrequires time and patiencehas a good amount of butter & sugarpacked with alcohol-soaked dry fruitscombination of sweet, spicy, and bitter flavoursshould be tasty enough to eat without any frosting or decoration
Two Step Process
This fruit cake recipe is a two-step process. Step 1) Soaking Dried Fruits: A mix of dried fruits, berries, tutti-frutti, candied ginger, and orange peel is soaked in alcohol for at least 15 days. There is no second step without completing this key dried fruit soaking process. Step 2) Making The Cake: Once the soaked dried fruits are mature, they are added to the cake batter before baking. 80% of the flavour in a traditional fruit cake comes from the soaked dried fruits.
Soaking Dried Fruits
The original fruit cake recipe requires soaking dried fruits in good quality dark rum for a month before making the cake. Don’t worry if you’re new to this method. Selection of Dried Fruits: I mix golden raisins, dried berries, cashews, walnuts, and colourful tutti frutti. Feel free to use a combination of dates, figs, cranberries, almonds, sultanas, currants, etc. But make sure to chop each dried fruit finely. Spices: Candied orange peels, candied ginger, garam masala, and a cinnamon stick are my favourite pick to flavour the soaked dried fruits. Make sure to chop the candied peels finely. Alcohol: Traditionally, only rum was used to soak all the fruit cake’s dried fruits. I mix rum, red wine, and Kahlua for an intense, fruity, chocolate-y flavour. Cherry brandy, amaretto, orange liqueur (Cointreau or Grand Marnier), and spiced rum are commonly used for soaking dried fruits. Use apple juice, orange juice, and rum essence to make an alcohol-free Christmas fruit cake. Soaking Time: I soak my dried fruits for 1 month. Yes, that is my SECRET. But you can soak them anytime from 1 month to 15 days. Seal the jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake it now and then. DO NOT OPEN the jar until ready to use the soaked dried fruits.
Fruit Cake Batter
SECRET INGREDIENT: A Christmas fruit cake’s dark colour and deep flavour come from caramelized sugar. Yes, I add BIG tablespoons of caramelized sugar in the batter to take it to the next level of deliciousness. Pick a time to make the sugar caramel when you are not interrupted. One distraction, and it burns down to a bitter-tasting, sticky mess.
Caramelize sugar before starting the cake and set it aside to cool down. In a pan on low heat, melt sugar slowly (image 1). It will melt and turn into a dark brown goop (image 2). Keep stirring and let it turn a deep dark caramel colour. Don’t let it burn. Keep the flame on low. Add about ¼ cup water (image 3) and stay away because there will bubble and roar like a volcano eruption. The sugar will harden and form crystals. Slowly heat the mixture until the sugar crystals dissolve, and keep stirring it. This will take around 10 mins. Let this cool and set aside. Do not worry about the consistency. It will be like thick honey or molasses.
The Christmas fruit cake batter is like any other sponge cake made with – flour, eggs, butter, and white sugar. Whisk butter and sugar until creamy. Add one egg at a time and whisk each time. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and garam masala. Gently fold the batter. Last, add caramelized sugar and alcohol-soaked dried fruits. Cut and fold the batter to combine. Bake the cake in a round tin at 180 degrees Celcius for 50 – 60 minutes in the middle rack of the oven.
My Tried & True Tips
Soaking dried fruits is an essential step in making a fruit cake. Hence, please do not skip it.
I highly recommend using a hand or stand mixer to whisk the cake batter. It gives a nice structure to the cake.
Whisk only for 1 minute at medium speed after adding each egg.
Allow the sugar caramel to cool down a bit before adding it to the cake batter, or else you might end up with scrambled eggs.
Add only the soaked dried fruits. Discard the liquid and the whole spices.
You can poke little holes in Christmas fruit cake while it is still warm and pour some brandy-rum mix to get a richer-tasting cake with an extra boozy kick.
The fruit cake tastes best when made a few days before you intend to serve it. The cake’s flavours and texture are more mature after a few days. Or you can bake it at night and serve it in the morning.
Serving Suggestion
A Christmas Fruit Cake does not require heavy decoration, fondant cover, glazing, or whipped vanilla cream on the side. The strong, intense flavour of the cake is a show-stopper in itself. And must be enjoyed without any toppings. However, you can serve fruit cake with a good dessert wine, port wine, black coffee, or tea.
Storage Suggestion
In the olden days, the fruit cake was made on Christmas and stored for the upcoming winter. I store Christmas Fruit Cake at room temperature in an airtight container lined with parchment paper for 15 days, and it remains perfect. You can store it for 2 – 3 months in the refrigerator. It remains moist, intense, and tasty. On certain occasions, I baked fruit cake, packed it after cooling down, and carried it with me while travelling (miles and miles via road/air/rail) to share with family. It is the best edible Holiday gift.
More Holiday Baking Recipes
Vegetable Bake Rum Bundt Cake Almond Cookies Gingerbread Cake Veg Shepherd’s Pie Chai Spiced Pumpkin Cake Eggless Sponge Fruit Cake Subscribe to our weekly newsletter or follow us on Youtube for video recipes.
