My Template for Fruitcake

So I guess fruitcakes aren’t en vogue these days. I get it, commercial fruitcakes are pretty nasty. And they seem to have spawned a whole culture of hate surrounding the colorful goofy preserved fruits that typically adorn fruitcakes. Don’t hate, people!

But I have enjoyed homemade fruitcakes that practically wallowed in their own moist dense liquor-y fruity goodness. Fruitcakes that looked like mahogany-hued fruit wreaths, smelling gently of liquor and spice. Fruitcakes that were moist and thick with dried fruit bounty. How could something like that fail to excite?

I can’t really tell what sparked my interest in fruitcakes this year. I probably haven’t eaten fruitcake in over 35 years (and fortunately, the one I remember was homemade). Then it happened – a few days after Thanksgiving, while I was grocery shopping, I bumped-into some candied fruit at the supermarket and decided that it was a sign to stop thinking about fruitcake and do something about it.

Cashier: [Inquisitively] “What is this stuff?”
Me: [Authoritatively] “Candied fruit.”
Cashier: [Inquisitively] “What do you do with it?”
Me: [Authoritatively] “It’s going in a fruitcake.”
Cashier: [Stares at me – tries to control the look on her face – decides not to ask any more questions]

The cashier was right. That stuff really does look strange and forbidding out of context. When I got home with over 2 pounds of candied cherries and pineapple chunks and citrus peel, I have to admit that I stared at it inquisitively myself and wondered what it was and what I was going to do with it. Make a fruitcake, of course (?). But how.

Same as always: check a bunch of resources and try and make sense of whatever I find. And what I found was a pluperfect mess. I expected a ton of treasured family recipes – most of which were very suspicious. What I didn’t expect was the breadth of differences I found in reputable tested recipe sources. Wow.

Here are some of the decisions I had to work-through before I could turn on my stand mixer.

(1) Dark vs. Light – I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a “light” fruitcake (light in color, not in weight). But yes, Virginia, there is a light variant in circulation that is usually characterized by the inclusion of coconut and almond meal and white granulated sugar. I was interested in making a dark fruitcake using lots of dark brown sugar and a bit of spice.

(2) Candied Fruit vs. Dried Fruit – Like I mentioned above, there is a lot of hate out there for candied fruit (citrus peels, pineapple chunks, and those bright red and green cherries). Many recipes go out of their way to avoid these colorful and artificial-looking additives. For me, visually, excluding these little gems gives you a fruited cake and not a classical fruitcake. So I decided to make a hybrid fruitcake – part candied fruit and part dried fruit. My dried fruit included figs, raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, and prunes. I would have included dates if I had any on hand.

(3) Brandy vs. Rum vs. Whiskey – Going for a classical fruitcake, I knew that I wanted to drench the result in some form of liquor. Most recipes swear by brandy. Some people like whiskey, but I didn’t think that taste would work so well in a fruit-centric cake. In my own mind, I had decided that rum would be the liquor of choice for a fruitcake but revised my prejudice in the end. I decided to used different liquors in and on my fruitcake based on the liquid sweetener I used in my recipe – I used a delicious aged rum for the fruitcake I made with molasses – I used a mixture of regular and apricot brandies for the fruitcake I made using maple syrup. Rum is molasses-y. Brandy is fruity. Win/win.

(4) Loaf Pans vs. Tube Pan – Tube pan. Sorry, but that’s the image I have in my mind of what a fruitcake is supposed to look like – a mahogany-hued wreath. Sure, the same recipe can be broken-down into loaf pans or mini loaf pans. It just wouldn’t look right to me. I wanted to stick with a tube pan.

(5) Spices – I decided to keep my spices simple and light – I didn’t want a chunky spice cake. I went with a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. A lot of recipes swear by mace. Mace didn’t make the cut with me. Actually, recipes were all over the map with spice. Yeah…I wanted to my fruitcake to be fragrant, not spicy.

(6) Macerated Fruit – Apparently candied fruit wasn’t always candied. Many recipes suggest that these glowing fruit bits used to be sold in a dried form that needed to be re-hydrated or macerated. Recipes that revolve around other dried fruits frequently include a step to macerate that fruit in some form of booze. I wanted to make a fruitcake that took the moisture and flavor of booze into the cake, not one that was actually dripping with booze. I didn’t want a cake that was riddled with boozy fruit. Since my candied fruit was candied and not dried, it didn’t require re-hydration. The other dried fruit that I included in my fruitcake was moist enough to include without first macerating. If I had needed or wanted to re-hydrate the dried fruit that I included, I would have soaked it in juice or, perhaps in a juice with some alcohol, but I decided against using fruit drenched in alcohol.

(7) Wrapping and Aging – Many recipes called for wrapping fruitcakes in cheesecloth and soaking the cheesecloth in liquor before allowing the fruitcake to age. Stories abound of fruitcakes opened after months or years that were moist and delicious. Suffice it to say that the concept of waiting to enjoy a dessert item is foreign to me.

Other considerations:

Nuts: You have to have nuts in a fruitcake (otherwise the expression “nuttier than a fruitcake” wouldn’t make sense). Most recipes use walnuts and so did I.

Eggs: There was considerable variation in the number of eggs included in different recipes I consulted before working-out my own template for a fruitcake recipe. I went with an average value of 5 eggs and was very pleased with my results.

Baking Time and Temperature: Fruitcakes bake at lower temperatures than most cakes (usually at 300 °F) and they bake for a long time (usually in excess of 2 hours). I made two significant departures from most of the recipes I consulted: I lowered my baking temperature to 275 °F after the first 90 minutes, and I determined when my fruitcake was done using an instant read digital thermometer rather than relying on the toothpick test.

Cocoa Powder: Yes, chocolate. Some recipes I consulted included a bit of cocoa powder for color. I liked that idea and adopted it with great results. Cocoa imparts color for sure. The amount in the recipe, though, is quite small and does not make this a chocolate fruitcake.

Reputable Sources: After consulting 40 or 50 recipes from books and online sources, I ultimately based my own approach to fruitcake on two primary sources: The Joy of Cooking (75th Anniversary Edition), and The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion Cookbook. The template I’ll present below owes a recognizable debt to both sources, but has modifications based on my own decisions and prejudices. I think it is always important to give credit where credit is due.

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So without further ado:

Great Food For Thought’s Template For Fruitcake

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour – 13 oz.
Baking Powder – 1 tsp.
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp.
Salt – 1/2 tsp.
Cinnamon – 1 tsp.
Nutmeg – 1/2 tsp.
Allspice – 1/4 tsp.
Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – 1/4 oz. (for color)
Unsalted Butter – 8 oz. – 2 sticks (at room temperature)
Dark Brown Sugar – 14 oz.
Eggs – 5 large (at room temperature)
Molasses or Maple Syrup or Honey or Corn Syrup or Dark Corn Syrup or Cane Syrup – 1/2 cup (choose one)
Booze (Rum or Brandy or Whatever You Like) – 1/2 cup (choose one)
More of the Same Booze – for brushing on the finished fruitcake
Orange Zest – from 1 orange
Lemon Zest – from 1 lemon
Candied Fruit – 1 lb. (use a variety)
Walnuts – 8 oz.
Dried Fruit – 1 to 1 1/4 lb. (use a variety)

Directions:

(1) Preheat your oven to 300 °F. Set the rack to the lower-middle position. Butter a tube pan and line the bottom with a ring of parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper.

(2) Measure-out the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cocoa into a sifter and sift together into a mixing bowl. Whisk the ingredients vigorously to combine. Cut the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and allow to come to room temperature.

(3) Have all of the other ingredients weighed-out and ready to mix. Brown sugar. Eggs whisked together briefly in a measuring cup (to facilitate pouring into the mixing bowl after the butter and sugar are creamed). Combine the liquid sweetener and booze and whisk to combine. Finely zest the orange and lemon. Weigh-out the fruit and nuts – chop any larger pieces of dried fruit (like dates or figs) into smaller pieces.

(4) Once the butter and eggs have warmed to room temperature, begin by beating the butter in the bowl of the stand mixer using the paddle attachment at low speed for about a minute. Add the sugar, all at once, and continue beating to cream the butter and sugar at medium or medium-high speed until the mixture lightens in color and becomes fluffy – about 5 minutes total. Scrape the sides of the mixing bowl several times to insure the sugar and butter are uniformly creamed.

(5) Reduce the speed of the stand mixer to low and pour the eggs into the mixture very slowly while the mixer is running. It should take at least a full minute to incorporate the eggs. Most recipes would describe this step saying “Add the eggs, one at a time – mixing after each addition to fully incorporate before adding the next egg.” Or something like that. The goal is to add the eggs slowly enough so that they have time to incorporate into the mixture. Whipping them and adding them slowly will insure this. After the eggs have been added, scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and then continue to mix for another minute.

(6) With the mixer running on the lowest speed, SLOWLY add about a third of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and allow them to be fully integrated into the mix. Then SLOWLY pour about half of the sweetener/booze mix into the mix and allow it to be fully integrated. Follow with another third of the dry ingredients, then the remaining half of the sweetener/booze mix, then the remaining dry ingredients. If you don’t add the ingredients slowly, the mixer will kick them out of the bowl – just spoon-in a little of the flour mix at a time and pour-in the sweetener/booze mix very slowly and you should be OK. When all of the dry ingredients and liquids have been incorporated, scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and mix briefly.

(7) Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer. Using a large spatula or spoon, mix the lemon and orange zest into the batter. Then pour all of the fruits and nuts into the bowl and mix them into the batter.

(8) Pour the batter into your prepared tube pan and tap the pan on the counter to even-out the batter. Bake at 300 °F for 90 minutes then reduce the temperature of your oven to 275 °F and continue to bake until the interior of the fruitcake registers at least 205 °F. Rotate the tube pan every 30 minutes or so to insure even baking. Start measuring the internal temperature after 2 hours.

(9) After the fruitcake has finished baking, move it to a cooling rack to cool for an hour. Once it has cooled, and before you remove it from the tube pan, brush the exposed surface liberally with whatever liquor you chose to use IN the fruitcake. Then invert the fruitcake onto the cooling rack and brush the top and side surfaces liberally with liquor. Repeat the booze-brushing process a total of 4 or 5 times – allowing at least 30 minutes between brushings to allow the liquor to be fully absorbed by the fruitcake. Wrap the finished fruitcake with aluminum foil to prevent staling.

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Comments:

The uncooked batter weighs 6 pounds. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

I made two different versions. The first one used unsulphured blackstrap molasses and aged rum – the second one used maple syrup and a mixture of regular and apricot brandies. The fruitcake that I made with molasses was a little molasses-y. Although the molasses taste subsided over time, it was still noticeable in the fruitcake. Since not everybody is a big fan of molasses, I don’t know if the molasses version would be a great go-to version for future fruitcakes – and the taste of molasses was certainly amplified by the taste of the rum. Don’t get me wrong – it was a delicious fruitcake, but it was a bit…well…molasses-y. If I make another fruitcake with a dark liquid sweetener and rum, I think I would choose to use cane syrup or dark corn syrup instead. For my second fruitcake I used maple syrup – and I decided to mix two brandies to use in-and-on that fruitcake. I found apricot brandy alone to be too sticky-sweet and I thought that regular brandy was too brandy-y. The mix of the two was marvelous. I would use this brandy mix in any fruitcake I make using maple syrup or honey or light corn syrup.

In case it isn’t obvious from the list of ingredients: one fruitcake is a LOT of fruitcake. And even after being very generous with my relatives and neighbors, I still had a lot of fruitcake on my hands (remember, I made two). What I learned from this wealth of fruitcake is that fruitcake does indeed age very well. Even after a week without additional liquorings both fruitcakes were still moist and fresh and delicious. I would say they mellowed a bit as they aged – in a good way.

But as much as I wanted to make a liquor-centric fruitcake, I realize that some people choose to forego the consumption of liquor in any form. For a liquor-free fruitcake, I would have used either apple cider or orange juice IN the recipe and reduced the amount to 1/3 cup. For the finished fruitcake, I would still have brushed the exterior with fruit juice, but I would have only done that a couple times to avoid a soggy fruitcake – plus I would have done a final brushing after a few hours with something like apricot jam (heated first) to seal the fruitcake and preserve the moisture.

Lastly, I am fortunate to own a nitrous oxide injected whipped cream dispenser so I have whipped cream on demand in the refrigerator at all times. While I don’t ever remember eating fruitcake with whipped cream as a child, I am fully convinced as an adult that whipped cream is great on fruitcake. Whipped cream is great on everything. Sure this fruitcake can hold its own flying solo – but think of it as Santa flying solo wearing a whipped cream Santa’s hat.

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Here’s a walk-through:

First of all, let me show you how I prepared my tube pan. Buttering is pretty self-explanatory, but I wanted to illustrate how I cut the ring for the bottom of the tube pan. It’s sort of like making a ring-shaped Christmas snowflake. You start with a sheet of parchment paper that you fold repeatedly around a single corner – fold in half, then fold in half again (folding down, not lengthwise), then again four more times. After six folds, you will get a skinny triangle of parchment paper extending from the corner you preserved in all of your folds. If you hold this triangle against the bottom of your tube pan – with the tip of the triangle at the center of the open tube, you simply make two cuts at the inside and outside diameters of the tube pan – then unfold.

Place the 6-fold parchment triangle against the bottom of your tube pan – the point of the triangle should be in the center of the open tube.

Using scissors, cut the triangle of parchment in the places that correspond to the inside and outside diameters of your tube pan.

When you unfold your parchment, you should wind up with a ring that fits neatly inside your tube pan.

Butter the empty tube pan first – then press your ring of parchment to the bottom of the pan and butter the parchment as well. Butter liberally.

Have all of your ingredients measured-out and ready to go before starting to mix the batter for your fruitcake. Make sure the oven is heated to 300 °F and the rack is set to the lower-middle position. Have a timer ready to remind you of the time and an instant read thermometer so you can tell when the fruitcake is fully cooked. Don’t begin to mix your ingredients before the butter and eggs have come to room temperature (65 °F – 70 °F).

Cut-up the butter in the bowl of your stand mixer and allow it to soften as it comes to room temperature.

Weigh-out your dark brown sugar.

Crack your eggs into a container that facilitates pouring. Beat or whisk the eggs briefly and allow them to come to room temperature.

Measure-out your liquid sweetener and liquor and stir to combine.

Finely zest one lemon and one orange.

Measure-out all the dry ingredients and sift.

After sifting, whisk vigorously to combine.

Weigh-out the walnuts.

Weigh-out the dried fruit you are going to use. Choose a variety of different fruit. Cut any larger pieces of fruit into smaller chunks (no need to chop or dice – chunks are fine).

Weigh-out your candied fruit. Use a variety for a colorful finished fruitcake.

With everything at the ready, wait for the butter and eggs to warm to room temperature. I waited about 45 minutes.

Whip the butter briefly in the stand mixer.

Add the sugar – all at once.

Cream the butter and dark brown sugar for about 5 minutes – scrape-down the sides of the mixing bowl frequently.

Note – In the picture above, the sugar had just integrated with the butter after about a minute of mixing and I had stopped the mixer to scrape-down the sides of the bowl. As I continued to mix at medium-high speed, the color of the butter/sugar mix lightened to more of a cappuccino color and increased in volume by about a quarter. While I don’t think creaming dark brown sugar with butter increases in volume as much as creaming granulated white sugar with butter, it should definitely lighten in color and fluff-up a bit.

Add the eggs slowly with the mixer running.

Note – I am always at a disadvantage when I want to document something that takes two hands leaving no hand free to take a photograph. It is at this stage that I am alternating the addition of the remaining dry and wet ingredients (the flour mix and the liquid sweetener and liquor mix). First 1/3 of the dry, then 1/2 of the wet, then another 1/3 of the dry, then the remainder of the wet, followed by the remainder of the dry. This is done with the mixer in motion and must be done slowly to avoid a catastrophic mess of ingredients. The moving paddle attachment of a stand mixer likes to paddle flour and liquid right-on-out of the bowl when they are introduced too quickly. Keep the mixer on the slowest speed and make your additions gradually.

Once the remaining dry and liquid ingredients have been incorporated, scrape-down the sides of the mixing bowl and continue to mix briefly to insure everything is uniform.

Note – You can see in the photograph above that there was a lot of rogue flour stuff pulled from the sides of the mixing bowl. And while you don’t wan’t to form gluten by mixing your batter to death here, it is important that all of your dry ingredients clinging to the sides of the bowl get mixed into the batter.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and mix-in the fruit peel, dried fruits, candied fruits, and nuts by hand.

I mixed-in the citrus peel first.

Then everything else.

Note – You will have a full 6 pounds of batter now. It takes a lot of work to fold-in all the ingredients, but this isn’t the time to slack-off. Make sure the fruits and nuts are uniformly distributed throughout the batter before pouring everything into your prepared tube pan.

Ready to bake. Make sure to tap the tube pan against the counter several times to level the batter. Yes, it looks heavy; and when you pick it up you will find out that it is actually heavier than it looks.

After baking – the fruitcake is done when the temperature exceeds 205 °F in several places around the center of the fruitcake.

Note – For whatever reason, my two fruitcakes were done at different times so it is important to use a timer only as a guide and as a reminder to rotate your fruitcake in the oven – use an instant-read thermometer to determine when your fruitcake is fully cooked. Start checking the internal temperature of your fruitcake after 2 hours.

Note – AFTER the fruitcake had cooled for an hour but BEFORE I removed it from the pan, I brushed the exposed surface of the fruitcake liberally with liquor – then I inverted it onto the cooling rack and removed the tube pan.

Here is the inverted result (with the ring of parchment paper removed).

Note – Brush the whole exterior of the cake liberally with liquor at least 4 times before slicing or storing – giving the fruitcake at least 30 minutes between liquorings.

Here are representative slices from my two fruitcakes:

Sweetened with molasses and aged rum – moistened with aged rum.

Sweetened with maple syrup and a mixture of regular and apricot brandies. Moistened with a mixture of regular and apricot brandies.