Fruit Cake

Merry Christmas everyone! We meet again after a long break! How are you doing? Here come the Christmas season, time to spread your love and happiness to your loved ones! Apart from presents, food is the main key of spreading joy and sharing love. Cake has become the attraction of Christmas every year and also a sweet treat to friends and family. It is a way to symbolize our sincere wishes during this festive season! Thus, our kitchen will be fills with the fragrant of cakes once again!


My family hearts fruit cake so much especially during Christmas season. Fruit cake is a must-have list in the menu for Christmas. For the past seasons, we will buy some fruit cakes from the bakery shop and the taste wasn't satisfying. Thus, this year, I was enthusiastic to experiment in making fruit cake at home again. Thankfully, I stumbled upon this recipe from Annabel Karmel - Christmas cake recipe! This recipe is indeed very easy to follow and thus far Annabel Karmel's recipes never fail me.


When talking about making fruit cake, many of us would think it is going to be a tough job including myself. Let me ensure you this is a trusted recipe and easy to follow. The best is to make fruit cake one month in advance and season it until Christmas. From my observation, the main key of making fruit cake is by selecting premium quality ingredients and follow the recipe closely. Hence, you will have a hearty fruit cake for Christmas. Fruit cake needs to bake at lower temperature and longer hours with slow cooking to get the best result of it.

I have modified some of the ingredients according to my family preference. This fruit cake is simply the kind of fruit cake we heart even without the brandy as one of the main ingredients. I have substituted brandy with concentrated orange juice because it will be serves to the whole family including small children. I have also omitted the nuts in this recipe as my family preference pure fruity texture of fruit cake. The original recipe uses dark muscovado sugar which gives a darker tone to the cake, but unfortunately I am unable to find it. Thus, I substituted it with the mixture of brown sugar and molasses sugar. The fragrant smell and gentle sweetness of the molasses sugar is simply awesome. Even with all the modifications I have made to this recipe, this fruit cake came out perfectly and need not to say, delicious!

Till then, I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas! May this Christmas be bright and cheerful and may the New Year begin on a prosperous note! Have a joyful holiday till we meet again in 2012!

This recipe was adapted and modified from Annabel Karmel Christmas Cake Recipe Ingredients: 1 kg Mixed fruits (800g Pre-mixed fruits, 100g mixed peel + 100g glazed green/red cherry, chopped) 4 tbsp Brandy/Orange juice (I used Sunquick Concentrated Orange Juice) 250g Butter, softened (I used S.C.S butter) 250g Dark muscovado sugar (I used 200g Soft brown sugar + 50g Molasses sugar) 6 eggs 350g Plain flour (I used Superfine flour) 1 tsp Baking powder pinch of salt 1 tsp Mixed spice 1 tsp Cinnamon powder 1 tsp grated lemon rind 100 - 200g whole almond for garnishing Method: 1. Soak all the mixed fruits in a big mixing bowl with 4 tbsp of orange juice, cover with aluminum foil. Leave it in the fridge overnight. 2. The next day, remove the mixed fruits from fridge and leave it to room temperature. 3. Line a 23 cm (9') square tin with double layer of baking paper, make sure the paper is 1.5" higher than the cake tin. Wrap the bottom & outside tin with aluminum foil. (see note 1). Pre-heat the oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas 2. 4. Beat the butter and sugar with electric cake mixer until fluffy. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in another mixing bowl. 5. Beat each egg in a small bowl (see note 2) before adding in the batter, fold in some flour mixture with each egg. Fold in the remaining flour and scrape down all the batter at the side of the mixer bowl to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed. 6. Remove the mixer bowl from the electric mixer, add mixed spice, cinnamon and lemon rind. Then, add in the mixed fruits and mix well with a spatula. 7. Spoon the batter into the tin and level it. Arrange the whole almond on top of the batter according to your preference. 8. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 2 and a half hours. After 1 hour, cover the cake with a piece of aluminum foil/baking paper. (see note 3) 9. Then, bake until the cake is firm to the touch and a skewer in the centre comes out clean. 10. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for about 30 mins, turn out on to a wire rack and cool. Then, wrap in aluminum foil and store in the fridge. 11. Remove from the fridge and leave to room temperature before serving (see note 8) Note: 1. You may tie a double thickness of brown paper around the outside of the tin with 1.5 in higher than the cake tin. I used aluminum foil to wrap the outside tin because I don't have brown paper in hand. If you use brown paper, you just have to line the inside of the tin with baking paper according to the height of the tin. " ... wrapping the cake tin, as standing the cake tin on a double layer of newspaper/brown paper protects the bottom and sides of the cake and prevents it cooking too quickly and more importantly, burning during the long slow cooking ..." (reference from here). 2. Beat each egg in a separate bowl before adding it to the batter is to prevent any spoilt egg. 3. Cover the cake after 1 hour of baking with a piece of aluminum foil/baking paper to prevent the top getting burn. 4. Since I am unable to find dark muscovado sugar in the shop, I substituted with 200g soft brown sugar + 50g molasses sugar to make the cake darker in colour. Nevertheless, I still find the cake is not dark enough, it will definitely better if you can use dark muscovado sugar or dark brown sugar to make the cake darker. (some recipe called for black treacle to have a darker colour) "muscovado sugar = dark brown sugar (reference from here)" 5. I have omitted the nuts in the original recipe because my family preferred only rich mixed fruits cake. If you are a nuts lover, you may add in the nuts according to the original recipe! 6. I used orange juice as this cake is serves to children. 7. Season the cake one month in advance to enhance the taste, pouring 1 - 2 tbsp of brandy on top of the cake each week to make the cake richer and tastier. 8. Chill the cake in the fridge for at least 1 hour before cutting to avoid breaking up and to have a nice cut.