I am going to preface this recipe with, this is not a traditional Christmas fruit cake.
That is the exact reason however, that I love this cake.
I have always severely disliked heavy alcohol laden Christmas cakes, and this is my much lighter take on the traditional. This cake uses delicious dried fruit, but the cake is more cake-y than fruit heavy.
This cake is not alcohol free (but could easily be made so), but by using a large quantity of good quality vanilla extract (which contains alcohol) to soak the dried fruit you get an intense vanilla, only slightly alcoholic taste to the cake. All in all a much lighter flavour and texture than a traditional Christmas fruit cake.
I have cooked it in a particularly skinny loaf tin as this creates the perfect serve when cutting slices of the cake (unfortunately the shape of the cake makes it much harder to photograph!). You could use something similar in size, just keep in mind a different shaped tin may change the cooking time for this cake.
I have used making this Christmas cake as a great opportunity to bake with some really great ingredients from some Australian businesses I really love.
Riverland Melange and Sticky Quince Syrup from Singing Magpie Produce
The mixed dried fruit is from Singing Magpie Produce and is called their Riverland Melange. It is a combination of sun dried quince, pears, apricots, peaches, black figs and white figs. While I highly recommend using a dried fruit mix like this, you can of course use any kind of mixed dried fruit for this cake. I also used Singing Magpie Produce’s soon to be released sticky quince syrup. As a lover of quince I bought this as soon as I could, when Sue at Singing Magpie Produce put together a limited run of a ‘Christmas Bakers Box’ containing this syrup, dried citrus and the Riverland Melange. It is delicious in both sweet and savoury recipes, and can be substituted with honey or date syrup.
I am a big fan of the Ballarat business, Grounded Pleasures and use their panela sugar at every opportunity. So this cake was no exception. Light brown or muscovado sugar could be substituted for the panela however. I also used some of their vanilla extract to soak my dried fruit in. This vanilla has a strong flavour, with the PNG sourced vanilla beans being paired with PNG white rum to create the extract. Any good quality vanilla extract can be used. Alcohol free vanilla extracts could also be used, to make this cake alcohol free.
Finally I used the Gewurzhaus St Nicolas Spekulaas spice for this cake, to give it a lovely festive edge. However you could also substitute with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice.
Easy Christmas Fruit Cake
Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake
Ingredients:
260g mixed dried fruit (I used Singing Magpie Produce Riverland Melange)
50ml good quality vanilla extract (I used Grounded Pleasures Vanilla Extract)
75ml boiling water
300g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp Spekulaas Spice (I used Gewurzhaus St Nicolas Spekulaas ground spice); alternatively use 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice
250g unsalted butter, softened
240g panela sugar (I used Grounded Pleasures Panela), or brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp sticky quince syrup (I used Singing Magpie Produce) or honey
50g mixed nuts such as almonds, pistachios or macadamias
35g (approx.) natural almonds, for decoration
10g blanched pistachios, roughly chopped, for decoration
Method:
Chop the dried fruit, and place into a bowl. Cover with the vanilla extract and boiling water and leave to soak for about half an hour.
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a 31 x 7.5 x 8cm loaf tin with baking paper.
Combine the flour, baking powder and spice in a medium sized bowl and briefly whisk to combine and remove any lumps.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until well combined and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, ensuring they are well combined after each addition.
Add the sticky quince syrup and the flour mix and mix until combined.
Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, add the soaked fruit along with any liquid left in the bowl and mix into the batter using a large wooden spoon or a spatula. Then add the nuts.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared loaf tin and arrange the almonds around the outside. Sprinkle over the chopped pistachios, and bake for about 1 hour 15min. Check the cake at around 45min-1hour, and cover with foil if necessary. The cake will be ready when the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 20-30mins, then remove onto a wire rack.
Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake
Reference: ‘Piri Piri Starfish - Portugal Found’ by Tessa Kiros (Murdoch Books, 2008), pp.191-2.
Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake
