Fruitcake

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Makes 1 fruitcake that weights around 0.8kg. I usually make 4x batch for convenience. I start by soaking my fruits on November 1st and bake the fruitcake on December 1st.  The shelf life after the last feeding is a month. 

Ingredients:

Macerated(soaked) fruits:

  • 60g dark rum, cognac or brandy
  • 45g chopped prunes
  • 25g candied pineapple
  • 40g candied cranberries
  • 70g candied citrus peel(orange, lemon, grapefruit)
  • 30g dried or maraschino cherries
  • 10g finely chopped candied ginger
  • 60g chopped walnuts

Batter:

  • 40g room temperature butter
  • 62g brown sugar
  • 25g honey
  • Zest of a lemon
  • Zest of an orange
  • Zest of 2 mandarines or tangerines(optional)
  • 2.3g ground cinnamon
  • 1g ground green cardamom
  • 0.75g ground ginger
  • 0.2g ground nutmeg
  • 0.1g ground clove
  • 2g of salt
  • 80g room temperature egg melange
  • 21g neutral oil
  • 5g vanilla extract
  • 80g flour
  • 4g baking powder

Additional:

  • 25g amaretto(can be replaced with rum) and 4x25g(100g total) rum
  • 200g marzipan, homemade or store-bought
  • 30g nappage or citrus/apricot marmelade
  • Candied citrus slices, nuts, candied fruits for decoration(optional) 

Instructions:

Macerated Fruits:

1. Mix everything together, let macerate for at least 3 days. I like to to make it a month in advance.

Cake Batter:

  1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line a 16cm cake ring with parchment. 
  2. Using a paddle attachment of a stand mixer(or whisks on a hand mixer) cream butter, sugar, all the spices and zest until light and fluffy.
  3.  With the mixer still on, slowly add in honey. Continue whipping until fully incorporated. 
  4. While the butter is whipping, whisk together oil, eggs and salt. 
  5. With the mixture on low speed, slowly stream in eggs into the creamed butter. Whip until fully incorporated.
  6.  Sift in flour and baking powder, quickly mix. A few small clumps are fine.
  7.  Fold in the macerated fruits. 
  8. Pour into the prepared cake ring. Bake for 90 minutes. 
  9. Let it cool a bit(15-20 minutes). Take out of cake ring, while still warm brush it all over with 25g of rum and wrap tightly with saran wrap.
  10. Place in a dry, dark, cool place. 
  11. Every 6th day feed with 25g rum(3 times total), then feed with Amaretto on the 3rd day.

Decoration:

  1. After you feed the fruitcake for the last time with Amaretto, coat the top and sides of the fruitcake with a thin layer of nappage or marmelade. 
  2. Roll out marzipan to about 2mm thick, cover the fruitcake. 
  3. Decorate as desired.  

Notes:

1. You can use a mixture of any fruits and nuts, but they have to weight 280g.
2. For fruit maceration and feeding you can use any high-proof alcohol. A nice alternative to traditional rum/brandy is is a 30/70 mix of Cointreau and white rum/tequila. 
3. I start macerating fruits on the 1st of November. I bake the fruitcake on the 1st of December, therefore I feed it on the 1st, 7th, 13th, 19th, 22th of December. 

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