Amazingly delicious super moist with lots of naturally sweet dried fruits chock full of nuts, and not overly sweet this is an outstanding fruitcake recipe.
About the recipe
The term fruitcake usually conjures up images of a heavy dense cake that is cloyingly sweet with bad quality dried fruits and fake syrupy candied fruits, all soaked in alcohol. This has always been my impression of fruitcake because over the years I have tried them all, and they have all – I hate to put it this way – but they all taste grossly teeth tingling sweet 😝.
So when my friend Basanthi told me she had an amazing fruitcake recipe that she makes every year over the holidays with our mutual friend Lakshmi, I was needless to say very skeptical.
Then last year at Basanthi’s Christmas party she served the Christmas fruitcake she had been raving about. I have to say it was the best fruitcake I have ever tasted! In fact, the cake just disappeared before our eyes, as everyone at the party couldn’t get enough of it!
Amazingly delicious fruitcake
Super moist from being soaked in rum for weeks, lots of naturally sweet dried fruits (no candied artificial fruits in this fruitcake!), chock full of nuts, not overly sweet, and guess what else? Basanthi made her fruitcake with almond flour! I would not have guessed had she not told me this little modification. An outstanding fruitcake recipe this is!
With the holidays upon us, I asked Basanthi for the recipe and here is the link from allrecipes.com Christmas Fruitcake. The author of the recipe Karen Uffelman describes her version of Christmas fruitcake in this way.
“It’s a shame that fruitcake as a species gets such a bad rap. With its two key ingredients–rum and butter–it ought to be a hit.
This recipe includes dried fruit, instead of the glowing, candied stuff we’ve all learned to associate with fruitcake, and is less dense and more cake-like than many fruitcake recipes.
It has become a favorite of my friends and family around the holidays (even the skeptical ones), and is delicious by itself, or covered with a layer of almond paste.”
Karen Uffelman
Make this cake now for a super moist and delicious fruitcake that will be ready by Christmas time 🎄🎅.
If you are thinking, “Hey, I have to wait 4 weeks to eat this delicious cake? No worries! I had the same thought. So I made an instant fruitcake with dried fruit soaked in sweet white wine and then combined them with one of my cake recipes to create a Sweet Wine & Dried Fruit Poundcake. Sweet wine and dried fruit poundcake
An All Natural Christmas Fruitcake
Christmas Fruitcake by Karen Uffelman on allrecipes.com
with a few modifications
Below are some pictures of my Christmas fruitcake making process and an ingredients list that is a little different from the original recipe because I couldn’t find citron and dried mango.
Ingredients:
- 1/8 cup chopped dried cranberries
- 1/8 cup chopped dried figs (instead of dried mango)
- 1/4 cup dried cherries
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 2 tbsp lemon zest (instead of citron)
- 1/4 cup dark rum for the dried fruit
- 1/2 cup soft butter or 1 stick butter
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 cup almond flour or almond meal plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour (instead of 1 cup all-purpose flour)
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/4 cup dark rum for the cake
My fruitcake making process: For complete directions take a look at this link Christmas Fruitcake by Karen Uffelman on allrecipes.com
- Soak cherries, cranberries, figs, and raisins in 1/4 cup rum for at least 24 hours. Cover tightly, and store at room temperature. I was making three different cakes hence three bowls of dried fruit in the photo below.
- Mix ingredients and bake.
- Wrap cake with cheesecloth. Sprinkle with remaining rum. Then wrap the cake in parchment paper. Place in an airtight tin, and age for at least 4 weeks.
Now we have to wait four weeks to try this decadent Christmas fruitcake on December 25th! But if this cake is anything like Basanthi’s I am sure it will taste amazing 😋! A special thank you to my friend Basanthi for finding and sharing this outstanding Christmas fruitcake recipe 😋😘. Christmas Fruitcake by Karen Uffelman on allrecipes.com
Happy Cake Eating! 🍰
