This dark, moist Rich Fruit Christmas Cake can be prepared in advance. Feed it regularly with Brandy, Rum or Whisky and it will mature over time. It's a great Christmas cake recipe and is the perfect size for a single-tier wedding cake.
This recipe will make an 8" round cake. You can use smaller sized round cake tins such as 6 inch or 4 inch. Or a combination of both, if you want to make small Christmas cakes. The baking times will, of course, be different. See my Notes and Tips below, for baking times using other sized cake tins.
This recipe was first published on November 2012 and has since been updated in October 2019 with new photos and additional information.
How to Make a Rich Fruit Cake for Christmas
In a large bowl, mix together the mixed dried fruits, glace cherries, and orange zest. Pour over the brandy and orange juice and mix well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight. Stirring occasionally. Allowing all the fruits to soak up the brandy and orange juice.
The next day
Preheat the oven to 170c deg (Fan assisted) Grease and line 1 x 8 inch/20cm round loose bottom deep-sided cake tin with baking parchment. Line the outside of the tin with a folded sheet of brown paper. Tied with string. This will help prevent the edges of the cake from baking too dry and possibly burning.
In a large separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and mixed spice or Speculaas. Using your fingertips rub in the butter until you have a breadcrumb consistency.
Add the sugar and ground almonds. Using your hands or a wooden spoon. Mix until well combined. Break up any remaining clumps of sugar and butter.
Add the soaked fruit, eggs, and treacle and gently mix together until everything is well combined. This part can be done a lot easier when using a good electric mixer with a large bowl. Do not over mix.
Pour the batter into the prepared 8-inch deep-sided cake tin making sure the top is level and smooth. Bake in the oven for 1hr 20mins. Then turn the temperature down to 160 Fan and bake for a further 55 – 60 mins or until the cake is fully baked. Testing the centre of the cake with a skewer until it comes out clean. At this point, to help prevent the top of the cake from over baking, you can place a sheet of baking parchment across the top and over the cake.
If the skewer still has any uncooked mixture left on it, continue baking at the same temperature. Testing again every 10 mins until the skewer comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool completely.
Take out of the tin and leave the inner baking parchment lining on the cake. Feed the cake with a couple of tablespoons of Brandy. Wrap in more baking parchment. With a further wrap of foil.
Feed with Brandy, Rum or Whisky every other day for a few weeks. Leave wrapped and in an airtight container until required.
Now that you've made your cake, you may want to think about how to decorate it. Especially for the festive season. So if marzipan and fondant are to your liking, take a look at my post on How to decorate your cakes this Christmas.
Tips and FAQ's
For this recipe, I soaked the dried fruit in fruit juice and brandy for a minimum of 6 hours. This allowed all the liquid to soak into the fruit, leaving no residual liquid behind. You can also soak the fruit overnight if you are making the cake early the following morning.
When the cake is completely cooled, double wrap in greaseproof paper/baking parchment, and further wrap in foil. Store in an airtight container to mature. A rich fruit cake like this will keep for several months when wrapped and stored correctly.
This depends on how rich a flavour and how mature you want your cake to be and how long you plan to make it in advance. Feeding a rich fruit Christmas cake with brandy, rum or whisky can be repeated at regular weekly/monthly intervals. Remember to rewrap it correctly between each feeding time.
For a non-alcoholic fruit cake, soak the fruit in orange or apple juice rather than alcohol. I'm a little sceptical about feeding a fruit cake with fruit juice and keeping it for any length of time. As I'm sure at some point the fruit juice will begin to go off and spoil the cake. Especially if you are keeping it for any length of time. Far better to soak the fruit in the fruit juice before baking. This is just my opinion.
A Note on Oven Times.
All ovens are different. Therefore oven timings in recipes are a guide. Likewise, if you use a different sized cake tin to the one suggested in any recipe, this will also affect the oven timings. An oven thermometer is a great investment and well worth buying.
Baking Tins for Different sized cakes.
This recipe makes 1 x 8 inch round cake. But it will also make cakes using either of the following sized deep sided cake tins;
- 2 x 6 inch round cakes
or
- 1 x 6inch round cake and 2 x 4 inch round cakes
Cooking Times for Small Christmas cakes.
These timings are for a conventional oven and are meant to be a guide only. Towards the end of the baking time, do the skewer test. If it comes out clean, it's baked. If not bake longer testing again at 10 mins intervals.
- 6 inch round tin = 1 hr at 160c then approx 40 mins at 120c
- 4 inch round tin = 1 hr 160c then approx 20 mins at 120c
Other Light Fruit Cake recipes
This Yorkshire Tea Loaf recipe makes a great alternative as a non-alcoholic fruit cake. The mixed dried fruit is soaked overnight in freshly brewed tea and will last a couple of weeks when stored correctly. It's wonderfully moist too.
If you love coffee, you may like to try this Mixed Fruit and Coffee Spelt Loaf Another lovely moist light fruit cake with a nutty taste from the spelt flour. The fruit is soaked overnight in freshly brewed coffee.
Another recipe that you may like is this Light Fruit Cake decorated with an Apricot Glaze and Glacé cherries or these Christmas Cake Bars
Rich Fruit Christmas Cake
Equipment
- Baking Parchment
- 8inch loose bottomed deep sided cake tin
INGREDIENTS
- 350 grams Currants
- 225 grams Sultanas
- 225 grams Raisins
- 50 grams Glace Cherries
- . Or you can use 850g (total weight) Mixed Dried Fruit. When buying pre packed mixed dried fruit.
- Grated zest of 1 large orange
- 4 tablespoons Brandy or rum/Whiskey
- Juice of 1 large orange. Approx. 4 – 5 tablespoons.
- 285 grams Self Raising Flour
- 2 teaspoons Mixed Spice or Speculaas spice
- Pinch of salt
- 225 grams Butter – fridge cold and cut into ½ cubes
- 75 grams Ground Almonds
- 225 grams Dark soft Brown sugar
- 6 medium eggs
- 2 tablespoons of Black Treacle.
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the dried fruits, glace cherries, and orange zest. Pour over the Brandy and orange juice and mix well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight. Stirring occasionally. Allowing all the fruits to soak up the brandy and orange juice.
- THE NEXT DAY
- Preheat the oven to 170c deg Fan assisted oven
- Grease and line 1 x 8 inch/20cm round deep-sided loose bottom cake tin with baking parchment. Line the outside of the tin with a folded sheet of brown paper. Tied with string. This will help prevent the edges of the cake from baking too dry and possibly burning.
- In a large separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt and mixed spice. Using your finger tips rub in the butter until you have a breadcrumb consistency.
- Add the sugar and ground almonds. Using your hands or a wooden spoon. Mix until well combined. Break up any remaining clumps of sugar and butter.
- Add the soaked fruit, eggs and treacle and gently mix together until everything is well combined. This part can be done a lot easier and quicker when using a good electric mixer with a large bowl.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin making sure the top is level and smooth. Bake in the oven for 1hr 20mins. Then turn the temperature down to 160c Fan and bake for a further 55 – 60 mins or until the cake is fully baked. Testing the centre of the cake with a skewer until it comes out clean. To help prevent the top of the cake from over baking, you can place a sheet of baking parchment across the top and over the cake.
- If the skewer still has uncooked mixture left on it, continue baking at the same temperature. Testing again every 10 mins until the skewer comes out clean.
- Leave in the tin to cool completely.
- Take out of the tin and leave the inner lining on the cake. Feed the cake with a couple of tablespoons of Brandy.
- Wrap in more baking parchment and feed every other day for a few weeks. Leave wrapped and in an airtight container until required.
Notes
Notes and tips.
How long should you soak the fruit for a Christmas Cake?
For this recipe, I soaked the dried fruit in fruit juice and brandy for a minimum of 6 hours. This allowed all the liquid to soak into the fruit, leaving no residual liquid behind. You can also soak the fruit overnight if you are making the cake early the following morning.How to wrap and store a rich fruit cake
When the cake is completely cooled, double wrap in greaseproof paper/baking parchment, and further wrap in foil. Store in an airtight container to mature. A rich fruit cake like this will keep for several months when wrapped and stored correctly.How to feed a Christmas fruit cake
This depends on how rich a flavour and how mature you want your cake to be and how long you plan to make it in advance. Feeding a rich fruit Chrismas cake with brandy, rum or whisky can be repeated at regular weekly/monthly intervals. Remember to rewrap it correctly between each feeding time.What else can I use to soak the fruit and feed a rich fruit cake?
For a non-alcoholic fruit cake, soak the fruit in orange or apple juice rather than alcohol. I'm a little sceptical about feeding a fruit cake with fruit juice and keeping it for any length of time. As I'm sure at some point the fruit juice will begin to go off and spoil the cake. Especially if you are keeping it for any length of time. Far better to soak the fruit before baking. This is just my opinion.A note on oven times.
All ovens are different. Therefore oven timings in recipes are a guide. Likewise, if you use a different sized cake tin to the one suggested in any recipe, this will also affect the oven timings. An oven thermometer is a great investment and well worth buying.Baking tins for different sized cakes.
This recipe makes 1 x 8 inch round cake. But it will also make cakes using either of the following sized deep sided cake tins;- 2 x 6 inch round cakes
- 1 x 6inch round cake and 2 x 4 inch round cakes
Sue Rees
I made Lynn's Christmas cake recipe this year I have to say, in all my years ( 40ish) of baking including Christmas cakes it was absolutely the best ever. Delicious. I didn't put marzipan and icing on the cake as hubby and me dont like it. Thank you so much Lynn for sharing your recipes. Xx
A
Hello. This looks like a great recipe 🙂 .. I would like to use a much lesser quantity of mixed fruits. How many gms minimum would you suggest? I'd also like to skip the orange juice and only add the alcohol, because the mixed fruit I have, contains citrus peels.
Thank you 🙂
Lynn
By all means, substitute the fruit juice and use alcohol to soak your fruit, but I would not alter the amount of fruit too much as you could have all the fruit sinking to the bottom of the cake with the amount of flour and butter that is used. Take a look at my other recipe for a Light Fruit Cake which uses 600g of mixed dried fruit rather than the 850g that is used in this recipe.
kristen
when you say feed the fruit cake how would you do this? sorry if this sounds like a stupid question first time making a fruit cake
Lynn
It's a sensible question. What we mean by 'feeding a fruit cake' is simply taking a few spoonfuls of brandy, or whisky and pouring it over the top of the (baked) cake allowing the alcohol to soak into the cake. You do this regularly either at weekly, fortnightly monthly intervals. Although you need to make sure that you don't over soak the cake. Just a few spoonfuls at a time is enough.
Doing this helps keep the cake moist and full of flavour. Some people use fruit juice instead of alcohol. Just make sure that you keep the cake wrapped in baking parchment, then a layer of foil to what ever you prefer to wrap your cakes in. DO NOT wrap in tin foil alone as the acid from the fruit will eat away at the tin foil and flakes of foil could become absorbed into your cake.
Christine Thorpe
Morning Lynn. Being a Yorkshire Lass, I love your recipes, especially the Yorkshire Tea Loaf!! I am making a start on my Christmas cakes and was going to use this recipe. I was going to make 4”, 5”, 6” and 8” round cakes. I see from your notes on this recipe how I can get 4”and 6” cakes from the 8” mixture, but what about the 5” cakes?
Happy Baking!
Lynn
A good question. Having not made them using a 5" cake tin, I can't be sure it would bake to equal sizes using this amount of mixture in 5" cake tins. The Pink Whisk - Ruth Clemens from the first Great British Bake Off Series, has an interesting post giving weights for different sized Christmas cake mixtures. She doesn't cover a 5' cake tin, but the weights for the 4" and 6" will give you a rough idea of what the weight of the cake batter should be for a 5" tin. This is the link to her post at The Pink Whisk Website
Christine Thorpe
Thanks so much Lynn for your help. Christine.
Claire Fitzsimons
This has become my 'go to' Christmas cake. I like to make for friends, so the 6" option was great. I also made gluten free versions last year too.
Thanks Lynn
Lynn
You're welcome Claire. How are you doing?
Sandra Amos
A curiosity question? This looks like it will be a lovely Christmas cake but can you tell me please what effect the rubbing in of the butter will have as opposed to the creaming method? Thanks.
Lynn Hill
That's a good question. TBH I'm not sure of the advantage. It was a very old recipe, on a piece of paper, that I found some years ago. With no info about the advantages of the rubbing in method. So I thought I would give it a try to see how it works. The light fruit cake recipe has the option to beat the butter and sugar together. I'm pretty sure using the creaming method would work with this recipe too.
Sandra Amos
Hi Lynne - this recipe is ideal for the 2 family cakes that I will be making and will make it using the creaming method. Can I just clarify please oven temp and timing? This obviously works in view of the very positive reviews but am curious as most recipes I have made before recommend a longer bake at a lower temp? Curious as always?
Also I noticed a comment dated May 2019 saying someone had made this gluten free and this is something I will be doing for our own cake and wonder if you have any feedback on this please? I could make a GF recipe as is but would like to convert this but don't want to mess up in view of the time and cost involved.
Many thanks
Sandra
Lynn
I begin with the temp at 170 deg, then reduce it down to 160deg. As all ovens are different, I would suggest using your own experience as you will know your oven well. As for the comment about gluten free, the person in question is in the Traditional Home Baking Facebook group, you could ask her there to see how she got on. If you post the question in the group, I'll tag her in on the thread.