Christmas Fruit Cake – dark, rich and boozy

A good, rich, dark and sometimes boozy Christmas Fruit Cake is a must-have on every Christmas platter. Studded with dry fruit soaked in rum and spiced with beautiful holiday flavours, this recipe is sure to win you over.

Christmas Fruit Cake
Christmas Fruit Cake

In most Christian homes along the south west coast of India, a good Dark Fruit cake makes an appearance at Christmas and all special occasions like engagement parties, weddings, anniversaries, Communion celebrations and so on. It also holds a very prominent spot on a typical Christmas platter, or what is locally referred to as a Kuswar platter. (Kuswar=Christmas sweets)

Most people I know enjoy a good fruit cake, but very often, find it too tedious to make one at home. They settle for a commercially made cake, which very often has a number of additives including caramel colour to give it a deep, dark colour.

Today, I’m sharing with you, my favourite Fruit Cake recipe. This recipe is a little longer than most other cake recipes. However, I can assure you it is a fairly simple process and the end result is so good, it’s well worth all the extra effort. To help make the process easier, I’ve broken this recipe down into a few parts. Some of them can actually be done days before you’d like to bake this cake. The best part is, this cake tastes best if it’s allowed to rest for a couple of days, so it’s a perfect one to make ahead.

Jump to Recipe

Step 1 – Soaking the fruit

This recipe calls for 500gms of mixed dry fruit. In my assortment, I’ve used raisins, sultanas, currants, mixed peel, candied / glacéd cherries and candied ginger. You can use any dry fruits of your choosing, in the proportion you’d like them. It just needs to add up to about 500 grams all together.

Dry fruit assortment
Dry fruit assortment

Chop the larger pieces of fruit down to make slicing your finished cake easier. Doing this also makes for a better eating experience, in my opinion. Place all the fruit in an airtight glass jar, top it off with some rum and set it aside in a cool dark place. The fruit needs atleast 24 hours to soak and rehydrate. The longer is steeps in the rum, the better the results. This can be done upto a year in advance.

Soaking the fruit
Soaking the fruit

Step 2 – Making the caramel

The 2nd step is making the caramel. There are many ways to make a caramel. For this recipe, you’re looking for one that gives you a slightly more fluid consistency. I’m using a 2:1 ratio – 2 parts sugar to one part water and I find that this gives me the perfect results for this recipe. You can make this caramel even a few days before you want to bake your cake. Simply let it cool down completely and store in an airtight glass jar. If you’re making this the caramel, the day that you’re baking the fruit cake, make sure the caramel has cooled down completely before you add it to the batter.

Christmas Fruit Cake - Making the caramel
Making the caramel


Step 3 – Making the cake

Making the batter is a very simple process. It’s just like making any other cake. You need to ensure all your ingredients are at room temperature. In this recipe, I’m using dark brown sugar to help lend a darker colour to the cake. If you can’t find dark brown sugar, regular white sugar will work too. Just make sure you use a fine grain sugar or simply powder your regular white sugar before adding it to the batter.

Sometimes, you find that the fruit in a fruit cake like this one isn’t evenly distributed. Mix the fruit into the flour – baking powder mix to ensure that the fruit doesn’t sink to the bottom of the cake.

Also, in this recipe, I’m using treacle to darken my cake and give it an added boost of flavour. If you can’t find treacle, use some molasses instead. I’m not using any artificial colours. A lot of the commercially available dark fruit cakes use caramel colour. If you’d like to, you can add some to the batter.

Mixing the fruit and flour
Mixing the fruit and flour
Christmas Fruit Cake - Adding the fruit to the cake batter
Mixing the batter
ready for the oven
Ready for the oven

I’m going to feed this cake only once with some dark rum, just as it comes out of the oven. This will help the cake soak up all the rum.

Feeding the cake
Feeding the cake

While you can cut into the cake as soon as it cools dow, for best results, I recommend atleast letting it stand overnight before you cut into it.

Once all the Hard Yakka’s out of the way, sit back and enjoy your stunning Fruit Cake.


Christmas Fruit Cake - Sliced
Christmas Fruit Cake – Sliced

Christmas Fruit Cake

Recipe by Trisha VazCourse: Cakes, Cakes, Cookies & Desserts, RecipesDifficulty: Medium
Yields

1.8

kilos
Prep time

50

minutes
Cooking time

45

minutes
Soaking time

24

hours (min)

This rich, dark and boozy Christmas Fruit Cake is studded with dry fruit and is beautifully spiced to make it the perfect cake for the Holidays.

Ingredients

  • For soaking the dry fruit –
  • 100g sultanas

  • 100g raisins

  • 100g currants

  • 100g mixed citrus peel

  • 50g candied / glaced cherries

  • 50g candied ginger

  • 240ml dark rum

  • For the caramel –
  • 1 cup sugar

  • 1/2 cup hot water, from a recently boiled kettle

  • For the cake –
  • 200g butter, at room temperature

  • 200g dark brown sugar

  • 4 eggs

  • 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste / vanilla extract

  • 2 tbsp Treacle

  • 120ml Caramel (recipe included)

  • Zest and juice of 1 orange

  • 250g all purpose flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon

  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger

  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves

  • Dry fruit, previously soaked as per directions below.

  • 50g cashew nuts, chopped

  • 45ml dark rum

Directions

  • Soaking the fruit –
  • Chop all the dry fruit into smaller pieces. I try and keep them evenly sized, like the size of the currants, which are the smallest in the assortment.
  • Place all the chopped fruit in an airtight glass jar. Top with rum. Mix well. Cover and steep for a minimum of 24 hours in a cool, dry place. You can leave this fruit to steep for upto a year. Shake the jar or stir the ingredients every once in a while.
  • For the caramel –
  • Place 1 cup sugar in a large vessel. Let it melt and caramelise on medium heat till all the sugar has dissolved. Do not stir the sugar. Swirl the pan, as needed.
  • Once all the sugar has completely dissolved and it caramelised, pour 1/2 cup hot water down the side of the vessel. It is important to do it in this manner to prevent the caramel splashing on you.
  • Let it heat through for about another 10 seconds or till both liquids have mixed well. Give it a light stir to ensure they have mixed through.
  • Set this aside and leave to cool completely before adding to the cake batter.
  • If you’re making the caramel ahead of time, after is had completely cooled, store in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dry place.
  • To make the cake –
  • Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl to combine well.
  • In a larger bowl, place the soaked dry fruit after draining out any excess rum. Do not discard this rum. You can top the jar up with more fruit and rum and leave to steep for the next time you make this cake.
  • Add the cashewnuts to the fruit and mix well.
  • Add the flour and baking powder mix to the bowl and mix the flour and fruit thoroughly, and stir through to break up any larger clumps of fruit.
  • Preheat your oven to 170C and line a 9 inch square cake tin with baking paper and grease it.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer, place the butter and brown sugar and beat till it is light and creamy and all the sugar has dissolved.
  • Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each addition.
  • Add the vanilla, orange zest and juice, caramel, treacle and all the ground spice powders. Mix well till combined.
  • Lastly, add the fruit – flour mix and fold it into the cake batter.
  • Bake for 40-45 minutes or till done.
  • Immediately, pour the rum all over the top surface of the cake.
  • Let the cake cool down in the cake pan itself.
  • When it has completely cooled, it is ready to serve or store. For best results, let it rest overnight before cutting. Store carefully wrapped in a couple of layers of baking paper.
  • When you’re ready to serve, cut into slices or bars and enjoy!

Recipe Video

Notes

  • Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature.
  • The fruit should be soaked for a minimum of 24 hours or upto one year in an airtight glass jar. The longer they steep, the better.
  • Make sure the caramel has cooled down completely before adding to the batter. The caramel can be made a few days ahead. Simply let it cool down completely and store in an airtight glass jar till ready to use.
  • For best results, let the cake rest atleast overnight before cutting into it.

27 thoughts on “Christmas Fruit Cake – dark, rich and boozy

    1. Hi Trisha
      This year round, my first Cmas on retirement, I tried out not only your boozy fruit cake, but the nankatais, date rolls, marzipan, puffs & kulkuls. They were all a hit. Turned out so good. U have a way of taking us thru like a breeze that it amazed me when I took up one sweet after another.

      Thanks a ton Trisha. God bless.

  1. It’s the best Christmas cake I’ve ever made. Thanks so much, Trisha. The only ingredients I didn’t have is treacle. Yet it turned out so well.

    1. I’m so happy to hear that Leena. Thank you for your feedback. The treacle is mostly for a slightly darker color.

      1. I use salted butter. I prefer the flavour. However, if you only have unsalted butter, that would work too. You can add a pinch of salt to the mix, if you like.

        1. I just want to know how much was the flour and baking powder. And baking time and how much is the tempreature .

  2. Hi Trisha am going to try this cake. But am curious why you don’t use the liquid that’s left in the steeping of fruits in the cake? Would it be alright if I added it in together with all the other ingredients?

    1. Hi Regina. I usually just add more fruit to the jar and let it steep for the next time I make the cake. If you use the liquid, the batter may become even more loose than this. So just make sure your adjusting the amount of orange juice / caramel depending on the amount of the fruit rum you’re adding. Hope this helps.

      1. Hi Trisha!
        Your Christmas cake recipe has been highly recommended by not one but 3 friends of mine. So I’m going to follow your recipe for the Christmas cake this year. Just one question – my family does not like the taste/smell of rum. Can I use Sweet Sherry (Bristol Cream) instead? Also, can I pour the same over the cake once it comes out of the oven?

    2. Hie
      Cake looks delicious and I am planning to bake a cake using ur recepie. I tried making the caramel and it has solidified after cooling down . Can u please guide me where I went wrong with.

    1. Hi Rancy, you can use Molasses instead. If you don’t have access to either, you can still make the cake, you’ll just have a lighter coloured fruit cake and there will be a very slight difference in taste. You will still end up with a really tasty cake. Hope this helps.

  3. Hi Trisha
    I wanted to know instead of pouring rum on the hot cake why didn’t u pour left fruit soaked rum

  4. Hi Trisha, just to let you know that I am making Christmas sweets for the first time ever and I have chosen all your recipes as you explain really well. I have already made the chocolate hazelnut fudge, marzipan and milk cream following your recipes and will be doing the cake next.

    I have just one question, at what temperature should the oven be preheated and the cake baked?

  5. I have just made the cake and is now cooling before being packed away . The recipe to follow is very easy. Can’t wait for tomorrow to test -thank you so much!

  6. Hi Trisha,
    We made Christmas cake, marzipan, milk cream , Chana doce, chocolate fudge and kul kuls using your recipes and they turned out fantastic. In a year filled with uncertainty and gloom and being away from family at this of the the year your recipes brought that much needed spark to lighten up our Christmas season by helping us bring a taste of home. Thank you ! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to ours.

  7. Hi Trisha, I’m an amateur baker and this recipe looks like something that I can really trust! (hehe)

    I had 2 questions though.
    1) Can I feed the cake with the leftover fruit soaked-rum?
    2) By mixed citrus peel, do you mean candied? or just dried peel?

  8. Hi Trisha
    I dont normally leave comments on websites but I had to do for you. Just thought I would compliment you on the excellent notes and tips. Each time I tried your recipes (christmas cake, date and walnut rolls, milkcream) they turned out perfectly. Thank you for your generosity. Stay blessed!

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