Fruitcake

Fruitcakes are a dense cake made from a simple batter packed full of candied and dried fruit and nuts. In some families, fruitcakes are popular around the holidays and for weddings.  If you have questions about seasoning or decorating a fruitcake, we can help! Follow our simple guide to all about fruitcake – we added some of our favourite recipes and even included some recipes for the non-fruitcake lovers in your life.

Fruitcakes have been popular for holidays and weddings for many years. Families often pass down favourite recipes from generation to generation.  

Fruitcake Tips: 

1. Fruit and nuts may be soaked before using. This helps to add moisture to the cakes, soften or plump fruit and add flavour. 
2. Substitutions can be easily made. Change one dried fruit for another, one candied fruit for another or one nut for another.  
3. Add or omit fruit or nuts by keeping the volume or weight of the added ingredients about the same. 
4. Fruit may be tossed in a small amount of flour to help keep it suspended in the batter. 
5. Grease pans and line with a double thickness of greased parchment paper. 
6. Bake according to the recipe directions. Low temperatures and long bake times are needed to allow the dense batter to bake but not dry out. 
7. If cakes are over-browning, loosely tent with foil.  
8. Test for doneness at least ½ hour before the suggested bake time and then every 10 or 15 minutes. A fruitcake will be done when a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out mostly clean. There will be a few moist crumbs on the tester. Be sure you are testing batter and not fruit. 
9. Cool cakes completely in pans on racks. Invert cakes onto racks and remove parchment paper.  
10. If seasoning is not required, wrap cakes with plastic wrap, and then into air-tight containers or zip-lock bags. Store in a cool dry place. 
11. If seasoning or ripening is required, see our guide on Seasoning and Storing Fruitcakes. 
12. To decorate a fruitcake, see our How-To Decorating Fruitcake.