Mixed Fruit Cake: Anyone Can Make It with an Oven

Whatever the festival, New Year or otherwise, people often think of fruit cake. This moist cake keeps for a long time, and a great fruit cake depends not only on the cake itself but on good fruit too. Let's look at the recipe.

What Is Fruit Cake?

Fruit cake is a butter cake made mainly with dried fruit, nuts and spices. Some recipes include liquor for extra aroma and to warm the body, as it is traditionally given and eaten to celebrate Christmas and New Year, during winter in Europe and the USA. In England it is still popular as a wedding cake, because its dense, firm texture can bear a lot of weight. It also keeps well at room temperature, and when it contains liquor and is stored in the freezer, fruit cake can last as long as a year.

Fruit Cake Ingredients

For the Cake

• 226 g unsalted butter
• 120 g Okinawa brown sugar
• 30 g white sugar
• 4 eggs (size 0)
• 95 g cake flour
• 95 g all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp mixed spice
• ¼ tsp salt

For the Syrup

Mix together and brush over the fruit cake after baking, before wrapping it for storage. If you keep the cake for a long time, take it out and brush it again regularly to make it more fragrant and moist.

• 60 ml rum
• 15 ml concentrated orange juice (or use honey or maple syrup instead)
• Apricot glaze (for brushing the cake after maturing and giving the fruit a glossy shine)

Dried Fruit and Nut Topping

Candied orange, dried kiwi, dates, apricots, cherries, blueberries, raisins, glacé cherries, dried pineapple, dried figs, cashew nuts, almonds, pecans or anything else you like.

Step 1: How to Soak the Fruit

• Combine the dried fruit and toasted nuts in a mixing bowl.
• Add the rum and concentrated orange juice and mix well.
• Cover with cling film and leave to soak in the fridge for at least 3 days. Ideally allow 7 days or more, so the fruit absorbs the rum and becomes soft and juicy.

Step 2: How to Make the Fruit Cake

1. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and mixed spice.
2. Sift the brown sugar to remove any coarse lumps.
3. Beat the unsalted butter until fluffy, then add the brown sugar and white sugar and beat until combined.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Once well combined, reduce to the lowest speed.
5. Add the flour a spoonful at a time until it is all in, then beat to combine, but no longer than 2 minutes.
6. Add the soaked fruit to the batter and fold with a spatula until all the fruit is coated.
7. Spoon the batter into a tin and bake with top and bottom heat, fan off, at 160–170°C for about 60 minutes.
8. When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and let it rest. When it is cool or just warm, brush the top with the syrup (rum and concentrated orange juice).
9. Wrap in cling film and foil and refrigerate for at least 1 day, then decorate the fruit cake and serve. (The longer it matures, the better it tastes; decorate with fruit just before eating.)