The holiday season is full of wonderful traditions. Fruitcake is one of them, but lets be honest, a little

portion of fruitcake goes a long way! So i make small fruitcakes that i can offer or present on a dessert buffet. This recipe always gets rave comments because it is not too sweet and i use more raisins and candied orange than candied fruit.I don’t use candied cherries.Feel free to change what you like or add nuts that you prefer.By using slivered almonds, this fruitcake has no hard nut chunks that make cakes difficult to cut well. As you can see in the picture below,even this mini fruitcake cuts well!

Storing fruitcake advice is at the end of the recipe!K

 

Kathleen’s Fruitcake

Makes one 19 x 22cm or 20 cm round,or 4 indiv, or 16 mini cakes

250 gr raisins

75 gr currants

200 gr candied fruit

100 gr candied orange rind

75 gr cognac

225 gr soft butter

225 gr brown sugar

4 eggs

30 gr honey or molasses

225 gr flour

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

125 gr slivered almonds

* Marinate the dried fruits 3-4 hours minimum, or even overnight.

Preheat oven to 150 ° C. Beat butter, sugar, and molasses .Add eggs one by one.

Add remaining ingredients,adding the dried fruits last.

then pour into the lined and greased mold for easy unmolding. Smooth top.

Bake at 150 ° for 45minutes, lowering the temp  to 140 °C  30-45 more minutes until

It is golden brown.Let cool in pan. To unmold the cake, run a knife around the edges,

If the cake sticks to the bottom, heat the pan bottom lightly to soften the grease under the paper.

Let cool completely before cutting with a wet good serrated knife.

Storage; This fruit cake will keep for at least a month without drying out at room temperature.The best is to Freeze the fresh cake until ready to serve or cover with marzipan or fondant ,then it can be kept at room temp.Some people have stored them in the fridge .

Yes, the English traditionally soak their fruitcake with additional cognac or rhum several times over a few week period.This can be done once the cake has cooled while it is in the pan.But present tasts find that method to strong

in alcohol.