Growing up, our family has never ever celebrated Christmas Day and naturally, I do not join my friends' Christmas parties, nor return the favour should they get me any Christmas presents. To me, Christmas Day has always been just-another-PH on the calender, until very recently I realised that the yummy, dense and boozy "fruit cake" that is ridiculously jam-packed with dried fruits (so much so that there's more fruits than cake), which my paternal grandma used to bake for us from time to time, is actually called a Christmas fruitcake!
Traditionally, Christmas fruitcakes are baked and aged for up to a month before they're iced/wrapped in marzipan to seal the deal. But I actually believe they taste way better without the marzipan (not a fan), and neither had my grandma ever iced her fruitcakes, so.... nay, skip that!
Disclaimer, the recipe I'm sharing is NOT my grandma's recipe though. I didn't manage to learn any of my grandma's amazing recipes (her legendary fruit cake and pies, and even the CNY snack, honeycomb!) as back then I was much younger and had no interests whatsoever in anything that happens in the kitchen, but I vaguely remembered that she needs to soak her fruits for (at least?) a week in alcohol before proceeding to make the cake.
Why wait another week when you can make it on the spot, as and when you want to, right?
So let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started!
To get a 5" round tin plus a loaf pan sized cakes, you'll need:
180g plain flour
100g almond flour
100g muscovado brown sugar
250g unsalted butter
(or you can replace up to half with unsweetened applesauce)
4 eggs
(mine were about 55g out of the shells)
700 - 750g chopped dried fruits of your choice
(I used a mixture of dried mixed fruits, sultanas, yellow raisins, chopped apricots and red cherries)
100g almond strips/flakes
120ml liqueur of choice, plus more for feeding
(I typically use either Cognac or Benedictine DOM)
120ml orange juice
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
(you may omit clove or nutmeg, but cinnamon and mixed spice are a MUST!)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)
First up, instead of soaking your dried fruits in the liqueur for 1 week, you... BOIL them. :)
In a fairly large pot over small fire, add in your butter and allow the butter to fully melt. Do stir it to prevent the butter from burning. Once the butter has fully melted, add in the applesauce (if you're using) and sugar, and mix until the sugar has dissolved. Then, add in the liqueur, orange juice and chopped dried fruit and let the mixture come to a weak boil over medium to high heat. Once the mixture starts to boil, turn down the heat and allow it to simmer for another 3 to 5 minutes, constantly stirring to prevent burning, before removing the pot from the hob and allowing it to cool.
Once the mixture has cooled (to a point where it won't scramble your eggs), add in your eggs, one at a time and mix well with a wooden spoon/spatula. Make sure that the egg is fully incorporated before you crack in the next one.
Then, add in the flours, orange zest, spices and extracts and give it a quick mix until just combined.
Fill up your prepared moulds (lined with parchment paper and spray down slightly with non-stick cooking spray) with the thick and gooey batter and bang them lightly over the countertop to even out the surface, before sending them to bake in an oven preheated to 170 degrees Celsius (160 if on fan mode) for around 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
And once out of the oven, leave them to cool down just slightly for 10 minutes or so before poking holes all over the surface of the cake (leave them in the moulds!) and spooning a tablespoonful of your liqueur directly over the top of the cake. Then, leave the cake to cool completely in the mould, before removing them and wrapping them up tightly in cling wrap, parchment paper and all, and storing them in the fridge for up to a month.
If you're aging it for a full month, you can choose to feed your cake (with straight up liqueur or you may mix in a little orange juice if you wish) once or twice a week over the 4 weeks. But if you're reducing the aging process to just 2 weeks (like me), you can shorten your feeding intervals to once every 2 to 3 days. It really depends on how moist and boozy you want your cake to be.
Due to the high alcoholic content, this cake stores really well.... for a LONG LONG time. I'm saying MONTHS and MONTHS in just the chiller (no freezing required!)
And as for the applesauce+butter vs all butter variation, I would say that the applesauce not only reduce a hefty amount of calories from your cake, but also added a lot of moisture to the cake. In fact, I've fed my previous bake (all butter version) more than this version, but this was significantly softer and more moist. So if you're a fan of a gooey, moist and dense christmas fruitcake, I'll highly recommend that you give applesauce a try!
Till then,
Mia Foo
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