This Christmas Fruit Cake is a rich, intense British-style cake loaded with rum-soaked dried fruits spiced with candied bits of orange peel, ginger, and garam masala.
About Classic Christmas Fruit Cake
In India, the tradition of baking a fruit cake on Christmas packed with alcohol-soaked dry fruits came with the British. Ever since it has become a popular Christmas food tradition.
Christmas Fruit Cake is known as rum cake or plum cake in many parts of India.
This fruit cake is like a warm, comforting granny’s hug that will remind you of the Holiday Season for many, many upcoming days.
The chill of winter and the festive Christmas lights give meaning, purpose, and the right reason to indulge in this warm, earthy, spicy, slightly bitter fruit cake.
For me, The BEST Classic Fruit Cake:
- contain eggs
- requires time and patience
- has a good amount of butter & sugar
- packed with alcohol-soaked dry fruits
- combination of sweet, spicy, and bitter flavours
- should be tasty enough to eat without any frosting or decoration
Two Step Process
This fruit cake recipe is a two-step process.
Step 1) Soaking Dried Fruits: A mix of dried fruits, berries, tutti-frutti, candied ginger, and orange peel is soaked in alcohol for at least 15 days. There is no second step without completing this key dried fruit soaking process.
Step 2) Making The Cake: Once the soaked dried fruits are mature, they are added to the cake batter before baking. 80% of the flavour in a traditional fruit cake comes from the soaked dried fruits.
Soaking Dried Fruits
The original fruit cake recipe requires soaking dried fruits in good quality dark rum for a month before making the cake. Don’t worry if you’re new to this method.
Selection of Dried Fruits: I mix golden raisins, dried berries, cashews, walnuts, and colourful tutti frutti. Feel free to use a combination of dates, figs, cranberries, almonds, sultanas, currants, etc. But make sure to chop each dried fruit finely.
Spices: Candied orange peels, candied ginger, garam masala, and a cinnamon stick are my favourite pick to flavour the soaked dried fruits. Make sure to chop the candied peels finely.
Alcohol: Traditionally, only rum was used to soak all the fruit cake’s dried fruits. I mix rum, red wine, and Kahlua for an intense, fruity, chocolate-y flavour.
Cherry brandy, amaretto, orange liqueur (Cointreau or Grand Marnier), and spiced rum are commonly used for soaking dried fruits.
Use apple juice, orange juice, and rum essence to make an alcohol-free Christmas fruit cake.
Soaking Time: I soak my dried fruits for 1 month. Yes, that is my SECRET. But you can soak them anytime from 1 month to 15 days. Seal the jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake it now and then. DO NOT OPEN the jar until ready to use the soaked dried fruits.
Fruit Cake Batter
SECRET INGREDIENT: A Christmas fruit cake’s dark colour and deep flavour come from caramelized sugar. Yes, I add BIG tablespoons of caramelized sugar in the batter to take it to the next level of deliciousness.
Pick a time to make the sugar caramel when you are not interrupted. One distraction, and it burns down to a bitter-tasting, sticky mess.
- Caramelize sugar before starting the cake and set it aside to cool down. In a pan on low heat, melt sugar slowly (image 1). It will melt and turn into a dark brown goop (image 2). Keep stirring and let it turn a deep dark caramel colour. Don’t let it burn. Keep the flame on low.
- Add about ¼ cup water (image 3) and stay away because there will bubble and roar like a volcano eruption.
- The sugar will harden and form crystals. Slowly heat the mixture until the sugar crystals dissolve, and keep stirring it. This will take around 10 mins. Let this cool and set aside. Do not worry about the consistency. It will be like thick honey or molasses.
The Christmas fruit cake batter is like any other sponge cake made with – flour, eggs, butter, and white sugar.
Whisk butter and sugar until creamy. Add one egg at a time and whisk each time. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and garam masala. Gently fold the batter.
Last, add caramelized sugar and alcohol-soaked dried fruits. Cut and fold the batter to combine.
Bake the cake in a round tin at 180 degrees Celcius for 50 – 60 minutes in the middle rack of the oven.
My Tried & True Tips
Soaking dried fruits is an essential step in making a fruit cake. Hence, please do not skip it.
I highly recommend using a hand or stand mixer to whisk the cake batter. It gives a nice structure to the cake.
Whisk only for 1 minute at medium speed after adding each egg.
Allow the sugar caramel to cool down a bit before adding it to the cake batter, or else you might end up with scrambled eggs.
Add only the soaked dried fruits. Discard the liquid and the whole spices.
You can poke little holes in Christmas fruit cake while it is still warm and pour some brandy-rum mix to get a richer-tasting cake with an extra boozy kick.
The fruit cake tastes best when made a few days before you intend to serve it. The cake’s flavours and texture are more mature after a few days. Or you can bake it at night and serve it in the morning.
Serving Suggestion
A Christmas Fruit Cake does not require heavy decoration, fondant cover, glazing, or whipped vanilla cream on the side.
The strong, intense flavour of the cake is a show-stopper in itself. And must be enjoyed without any toppings.
However, you can serve fruit cake with a good dessert wine, port wine, black coffee, or tea.
Storage Suggestion
In the olden days, the fruit cake was made on Christmas and stored for the upcoming winter.
I store Christmas Fruit Cake at room temperature in an airtight container lined with parchment paper for 15 days, and it remains perfect.
You can store it for 2 – 3 months in the refrigerator. It remains moist, intense, and tasty.
On certain occasions, I baked fruit cake, packed it after cooling down, and carried it with me while travelling (miles and miles via road/air/rail) to share with family. It is the best edible Holiday gift.
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Christmas Fruit Cake Recipe
- Round Cake Tin
Ingredients
1 Cup = 250 ml
Ingredients For Soaking Dried Fruits
- 200 gram (1 Cup) dried tutti frutti (candied fruit)
- 60 gram (¼ Cup) black seedless raisins, finely chopped
- 60 gram golden raisins, finely chopped
- 60 gram walnuts, finely chopped
- 60 gram cashew, finely chopped
- 25 gram candied ginger, finely chopped
- 25 gram candied orange peels, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon Garam Masala ( see recipe here)
- 1 Cup rum (alcoholic beverage)
- ½ Cup red wine/brandy (optional)
Ingredients for caramelised sugar:
- ½ Cup granulated white sugar
- ¼ Cup water, at room temperature
Ingredients For The Cake Batter:
- 125 gram (½ Cup) all-purpose flour (maida)
- 125 gram unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 100 gram (⅓ Cup) granulated white sugar
- 3 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala ( see recipe here)
- 1 teaspoon rum extract (optional)
- 1 teasponn vanilla essence
Ingredients For Decoration:
- icing sugar or confectioner's sugar
- glazed cherries or candied fruits
Instructions
How to soak to dry fruits and candied fruits in rum:
- For soaking fruits, mix all the chopped candied fruits, dried fruits in a bowl. Pour in rum and, wine along with garam masala. Mix nicely and transfer to a clean airtight container. This can be done 1 month before or you can either do it one-two night before making the cake.
How to make caramelised sugar:
- Caramelize sugar before starting the cake and set it aside to cool down. In a pan on low heat, melt sugar slowly. It will first melt and then turn into a dark brown goop. Keep stirring and let it turn a deep dark caramel color. Don’t let it burn. Keep the flame on low, add about ¼ cup water and stay away because there will bubble and roar like a volcano eruption.
- The sugar will harden and form crystals. Slowly heat the mixture until the sugar crystals dissolve and keep stirring it. This will take around 10 mins. Let this cool and set aside. Do not worry about the consistency it will be like thick honey or molasses.
How to make christmas cake:
- Pre-heat oven to 350F / 180C. Line a round baking tin with parchment paper and grease sides well with butter.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, garam masala powder, and salt in a bowl.
- Whisk the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale in color – about 10 minutes by the manual whisk, 3-4 mins with a hand mixer. Add rum essence, vanilla essence and mix until combined.
- Add egg one at a time, beating each time for about 1 minute using a hand mixer.
- Fold in the flour mixture one-third at a time and mix gently using a spatula. combine all the ingredients nicely to form a smooth cake batter.
- Add the cooled caramel and the soaked dried fruits. Cut and fold the batter to evenly combine.
- Pour cake batter into the greased cake tin. Tap once or twice on the kitchen counter to release any air trapped.
- Bake for 55-60 minutes until the top turns into a dark brown color and when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with dry crumbs. You can start checking from 45 minutes onwards. Usually, in our oven, it takes up to 60 minutes. The top will look like it’s overdone but don’t worry, make sure the inside is also completely cooked.
- Once the cake cools down completely, brush it with some leftover rum and cover it with foil and leave it in the oven or some warm place overnight or until you need it. This way it has a nice matured flavor.
- Dust the Christmas cake with the icing sugar before serving.
- Store Christmas cake at room temperature for up to a month in an air-tight container.
Recipe Notes:
- If you are not too keen on making caramelized sugar from scratch, use golden syrup or molasses of approximately 2 tablespoons.
- You can poke little holes in your cakes after it is done and pour some brandy-rum
mix to get a richer, rummier cake with an extra kick. - The cake tastes best when it is made a few days before you intend to serve it. The flavors and the texture of the cake are more matured after a few days. Or you can bake it at night, and serve in the morning.
- Store your cake wrapped in butter paper, and then in an airtight
container.
Nutrition
Seeta says
the best dish of the season 🙂 I heard some marinate the raisins even 6 months before! 🙂
Indrani says
Great post for the season.
Tinku Ji says
Looks too good
Tara nair says
Unnhhh… Hina you are too good at killing me like this 😉 What a tempting dish. I wish instead of Bengaluru you were at Pune… I would emerge magically 🙂 Missed it.
Nikhil says
Gal….now that looks wonderful.:)
A merry x’mas & a happy new year to you. 🙂
Monu Teena says
Seriously wow. I am just loving the recipe dear plus the presentation very nice 🙂 Happy New year to you and your family <3
Farheen says
Hi, substitute for alcohol in this cake? would like to try this out. Good work
Hema Bhakuni says
I was waiting for this recipe from last year mam. Thank you for sharing
Hina Gujral says
Hope you enjoy baking it! Happy Holidays
Shruthi reddy says
Can’t wait to try this ????
Hina Gujral says
Hope you enjoy baking this cake.
Supreeth says
What a lovely recipe! Cant wait to try it out
Hina Gujral says
Looking forward to your feedback!
Vitina says
Hi Hina, I am trying this recipe for this Christmas! I was wondering what size of round pan can I use for this recipe?
I have a 6” x 3” Deep Round Cake Pan, with me. Can I use the same pan?
Any tips would be great! Thank you and happy holidays to you.
Hina Gujral says
8 inch round cake tin will be perfect.