This Christmas fruit cake is one of the best you’ve ever tried. A classic, moist, dark cake filled with fruits and packed with spices will become everyone’s favourite cake. This cake reaches its perfection after being soaked for a month with a splash of cherry liquor.
Christmas fruit cake is a traditional British Christmas cake, which is usually packed with nuts, fruits and soaked with some alcohol. It’s packed with flavour and really simple to make. In fact, you just combine all of the ingredients, without kneading the dough, soaking the fruits or waiting for the dough to rise. Doesn’t this just sound amazing?!
Christmas cake in November
I’m so glad I’ve found this amazing Christmas recipe. In fact, I have to thank Nicky Corbishley for sharing it. The thing which intrigued me the most, besides the looks of the cake, was that you have to make it already in November. Whaaat? Baking the Christmas fruit cake in November? Yes.
This cake needs time and love to be at its best. Wink. Be ahead of everyone, start thinking about holiday dessert in a whole new way and bake this Christmas fruit cake right now. Keep it wrapped well, feed it regularly, store it in a tin box and let it mature through the month. That being said, you can bake this lovely cake also today, when we are only 3 and a half weeks away from Christmas.
How to keep the cake moist and how to preserve it?
Moreover, the Christmas fruit cake in Britain can be compared to the Stollen in Germany and to the Italian Panettone. Yummy! However, the Christmas fruit cake is usually soaked with alcohol such as rum, brandy, Cointreau or amaretto. As a result, the cake will last longer. I decided on Cherry liquor because I like the sweet and fruity note.
Also, when making this cake for your children, simply swap the alcohol with some fruit juice. For example, you can pick apple juice, orange juice or cherry juice. Oh, plum juice would be nice, too. However, when using fruit juice, it is best to make the cake not earlier than the first Advent. The reason is, opposite to alcohol, the juice isn’t such a good preserver.
Three tips on how to get a perfect Christmas cake
If you never made a fruit cake before, don’t worry. It’s really easy to make; in fact, you just need to put together all of the ingredients, mix and bake. Moreover, there are a couple of things that are really important. First, after the cake is baked, prick it with a skewer and soak it with liquor. Second, remove the baking tin only when the cake gets completely cold. And third, to store it, keep it wrapped and closed in a tin box.
Last, if you are looking for more delicious and easy Christmas recipes, check these out: you can serve this baked milk rice pudding as a dessert or as a main dish, a lovely and old-school egg stuffed meatloaf and another Slovenian dessert, the Bled cream cake in a glass.
Ingredients for a Christmas fruit cake (Ø 25 cm):
- 175 g butter (cold, cubed)
- 190 g brown sugar
- 170 g prunes (chopped)
- 170 g dried apricots (chopped)
- 160 g dried cranberries
- 200 g glacé cherries
- zest of one lemon
- zest and juice of one orange
- juice of one clementine
- 120 ml cherry liquor (or rum, brandy, amaretto, Cointreau, fruit juice)
- 100 g ground hazelnuts
- 50 g shaved almonds (chopped)
- 3 eggs (beaten)
- 190 g flour
- 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 3 tsp of cinnamon
- 1 tsp of gingerbread spice mix
First, chop the fruits and cut the butter (easier when cold). In a medium pot, add the brown sugar, butter, all of the fruits (apricots, prunes, cranberries and cherries), lemon and orange zest, orange and clementine juice and cherry liquor.
Cook the fruits, combine them with the rest and bake
Then, heat the pan over medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes. At this point, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for 20 minutes. While the fruit mixture is cooling down, beat the eggs and prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Before combining the other ingredients, preheat the oven to 150º C. Also, line the baking tin at the bottom and sides as well. At this point, stir the hazelnuts, almonds and eggs in the fruit mixture. Once everything is well combined, add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and the gingerbread mix spice.
In order to make the mixture flour pockets-free, make sure to stir well. Furthermore, transfer the Christmas fruit cake mixture into the baking tin and put it to bake on the middle rack for 45 minutes. After that time, reduce the temperature to 140º C and bake for another 60 minutes. In case it starts turning too dark, simply cover it with some aluminium foil. However, keep in mind, the cake should turn dark brown yet not burned. Wink.
Poke and soak the cake while still hot
Once the cake is baked, in other words when the cake turned dark golden brown and when you stick a wooden skewer in it and it comes out clean, remove the cake from the oven and poke some small holes in it (from the top) using a skewer.
The important thing is, to do this while the cake is still warm. Another important thing is, leaving the cake in the baking tin until it’s completely cold. After poking the cake, spoon over a spoon or two of cherry liquor and leave the cake to cool. Only when the Christmas fruit cake is cold you can remove the baking tin.
Store and feed it until Christmas
When the cake is cold, double wrap it in parchment paper and once in aluminium foil. Then store it in a tin box and keep it in a cold place. Now your only job is to feed it once a week, by spooning one spoonful of cherry liquor over it.
On Christmas day unwrap it and either serve it as it is or glace it with icing. I’m going to serve it “naked” because it tastes de-li-ci-ous! Wink. Additionally, this Christmas fruit cake is a wonderful gift idea as well.
Enjoy the holiday season!
If you like the recipe, if you make the recipe or if you have any new ideas on how to improve or change it, let me know in the comments section below or alternatively share your photos and reactions with me on Instagram (@Passionspoon), Facebook or Twitter (@PassionSpoon1). Simply use the hashtag #passionspoonrecipes in your posts. I would love to see them! (wink)
