The mention of fruitcake makes many people grimace but not me or my family. We like fruitcake, ever since someone gifted us one in the late 1970s. It was a commercially made one in an old-fashioned looking tin. The moist, dark, slightly boozy jewel-toned cake tasted good. Loaded with goodies, the American fruitcake evoked Asian moon cakes (bánh Trung Thu in Vietnamese) that are filled with chopped mixed nuts and sweetmeats. There are moon cake haters and lovers, and we Nguyens love bánh Trung Thu because we make our own.
As with many polarizing foods, personal experience and context shape your perception. In the incredible cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking, iconic restaurateur and author Edna Lewis expressed giddy enthusiasm for fruitcake:
Late September was a fine time to make the Christmas fruitcake. They were rainy days in September went outside work was curtailed and the cookstove was on, making the kitchen warm and cozy. The family was around and friends were dropping in — chopping fruit, grinding spices, and sampling homemade wine, trying to decide which one was best for the cake, and sipping a bit and whiskey as well. Preparing the cake became a festive occasion, and almost as exciting as Christmas itself. . . . Fruitcake is so special and lasts so long that only the best ingredients should be used in it.
My husband’s family — his mother and aunt, baked fantastic fruitcakes that they aged for weeks, soaking them in liquor. He was extra delighted to marry me because I enjoy fruitcake and make it too. I learned to booze up the cake from his Aunt Helen. She’s long passed away, but she taught me to be patient and let the cake mature.
Fruitcake History
Turns out that fruitcakes aren’t a uniquely American thing. According to Jesse Rhodes of Smithsonian Magazine, ". . . the modern fruitcake can be traced back to the Middle Ages as dried fruits became more widely available and fruited breads entered Western European cuisine.” There’s yeast-leavened German stollen, energy-bar-ish Italian panforte and dark Caribbean black fruitcake. Some say that Italian panettone is a type of fruitcake, too.
Reinforcing Lewis's point, Rhodes writes in the article that because of the high expense of ingredients, fruitcakes were a food of celebrations — weddings and holidays. That’s how fruitcake became a special event food. The British royals mark marriages with elaborate wedding fruitcakes, which may be well-preserved under royal icing and sold at auction. How fruitcake leapt into American Christmas tradition is unclear.
Creating your Best Fruitcake
Maybe the problem people have with fruitcake is that the confection is defined by poorly made commercial products. Check the Zingermans’ gourmet mail order food catalog and you’ll note that fruitcakes cost a pretty penny. Good ones are prized! Aged, “vintage” fruitcakes cost extra.
With all that backstory on glorious fruitcake, I make my own, and each year my fruitcake changes. For 2020, as a seasonal nod, I made shortcut candied citrus peel from the neighbor’s Meyer lemons and navel oranges from the farmer’s market. See the recipe Note for details. (Or, you can use this other recipe and chop up after cooking.)
Spicy, Boozy Fruitcake Tweaks
Like Lewis writes, fruitcake can and should be calibrated to reflect a specialness. I like to tilt mine toward Asia. To invite a bigger tropical presence, I included unsweetened coconut and used coconut oil in the batter. Ginger in candied, grated, and powdered forms furthered an Asian presence.
After tinkering with making Chinese five-spice powder, I rejiggered the spice blend for my fruitcake too, making it bolder and bigger with more spices. I used to think of fruitcake as only fruit and nuts but the spices -- which were traditionally seen as an exotic, precious ingredient, matter too. People went through great effort to obtain the spices and grind them fresh.
This year, I seasoned the fruitcake with extra care, tweaking the spices and other aromatics. I’ve written the recipe below to inspire you to create your own spice blend. There are options for how you want to dial in the flavors to warm, sweeten, zing, or add savory, pungent notes.
You can taste and adjust flavors at the forefront to produce a fruitcake that shines. Furthermore, you may mix different kinds of dried fruits and candied sweetmeats, as well as nuts and seeds. I use a Chinese liquor called mei kwei lu chiu but brandy, cognac, or dark rum would be swell. The liquor is used twice — to soak the ingredients and then to soak the finished cake. I poke holes in the warm cakes and pour over the liquor via a tiny measuring cup (essentially a jigger).
Fruitcake Size and Shapes
It’s fun to make fruitcake. It’s even better to gift it and eat it. This year, I baked the fruitcakes in disposable paper loaf pans so they may be baked and then mailed easily to family and friends. My batch was 1.5 times the recipe below, but the new stove has a largeish oven. If your oven is small, you may want to bake on two racks and switch positions midway.
And, finally, you can easily make a gluten-free fruitcake. Just use a 1:1 flour blend. My go-to is Bob's Red Mill brand, which has a weight equivalent to that of regular all-purpose.
I hope you concoct your own fruitcake because it’s delicious, easygoing, and gloriously festive. Let’s celebrate our staying power because we made it through 2020!
Coconut, Citrus and Ginger Fruitcake
Ingredients
About 7 ½ cups dried fruit and candied sweetmeats, such as:
- 2 cups chopped candied citrus peel (I mixed orange and lemon)
- 1 ½ cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
- 1 ½ cups dried sweetened cranberries
- 1 ½ cups raisins
- 1 cup roughly chopped candied ginger
Seasonings
- 1 to 1 ½ tablespoon grated, peeled fresh ginger
- 1 tablespoon grated orange ,lemon, or lime zest (optional)
- 6 tender kaffir/makrut or regular lime leaves, minced (optional)
- ½ cup freshly squeezed tangerine or orange juice
- 1 ⅓ cups brandy, rum, cognac, or Chinese sorghum and rose petal liquor (mei kwei lu chiu), divided
- 1 to 1 ¼ teaspoons
Chinese five-spice powder or pumpkin spice blend - ¼ to ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg or mace
- ¼ to ½ teaspoon ground allspice or clove
- ¼ to ½ teaspoon ground ginger or black pepper
- 2 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
5 cups raw or roasted nuts and seeds, such as:
- 2 cups walnuts
- 1 cup pecans
- 1 cups unsalted sunflower seeds
- 1 cup slivered almonds
Batter:
- 2 cups (10 oz) all-purpose flour, bleached, unbleached, or a 1:1 gluten-free blend (I use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 GF Baking Flour )
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- Generous ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (4 oz) virgin or refined coconut oil, vegan butter sticks, or unsalted butter, melted
- ¾ to 1 cup (5.25 to 7 oz) light or dark brown sugar (use lesser amount if the fruit mixture is sweet enough for you)
- 6 large egg, at room temperature
Instructions
- Put all the dried fruit and sweetmeats in a large bowl. Add the grated ginger, zest, lime leaf, juice, and ⅔ cup of the liquor. Season with the Chinese five-spice, mace, allspice, and pepper -- starting with the smaller quantities. Stir to combine well. Taste and smell, adding more five-spice (sweet warmth), mace (sweet pungency), allspice (savory warmth), or pepper (invigorating heat). When you’re happy, add the vanilla. Cover and let things marinate for at least 3 hours or overnight; stir a couple times, if possible.
- Meanwhile, ready your pans. There will be about 12 cups total so look for pans that can hold 16 cups total (8 baby loaf pans, 3 medium pans or 2 tube pans, for example). If needed, grease the pans then line their bottoms with parchment (the paper pans I used did not require lining or greasing). Set aside.
- Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 300F.
- Add all the nuts to the bowl of dried fruit and sweetmeats. Stir to combine well.
- In a bowl, whisk to gether the oil, sugar and eggs. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine into a batter then pour into the fruit and nut bowl. Use your hands or a big spoon to stir, combine and coat. Make sure nothing is clumped together.
- Divide the batter among the pans. Gently bang the pans against your work surface to settle the mixture, then level the tops. Decorate the top with a few nuts, if you like.
- Bake for 1 hour to 1 ¾ hours, depending on the size of the pan, switching directions mid-way for even baking. Gluten-free flour tends to take longer so be patient. The fruitcake is done when a skewer insert comes out clean with a bit of moisture.
- Cool on a rack for 20 minutes, then unmold, setting them right side up. before unmolding. Use a skewer to poke holes all over the cakes. Then pour on the remaining ⅔ cup liquor (I use a small measuring up). Set aside to cool completely. Put in an airtight container and let age for at least 48 hours (some say a week!) before eating. Refrigerate and return to room temperature before serving. To freeze for up to a year, encase the cake in cheesecloth, sprinkle with some liquor and wrap in foil.
Gillie
Every fall I would go over and help my grandma make fruit cakes. Some were large for enjoying at home, and others were small to give for gifts. She had a different method to soak her fruitcakes that I’ve never read anywhere. After the cakes were completely cool, she would wrap them in cheesecloth, then several layers of wax paper, then foil. After a week, they were unwrapped, discarding the wax paper, and then soaking the cheesecloth in alternating weeks of orange juice or brandy. By the time Christmas rolled around a slice could be forgotten on a plate overnight and still be fresh and moist.