home :: fruit cake

All about fruit cake

Fruit cake is a traditional butter cake that can be made by you, in the manner you like best. While our grandmothers and great grandmothers used a mixture of candied or glaceed, dried fruits and nuts to make up their fruit cakes, we can omit the candied and glaceed if we choose and stick with dried fruits such as apricots, pears, currants and raisons.

If you would like to make your fruit cake with candied or glaceed fruits be sure to spend a little more money for the quality you will find at a specialty store as opposed to the supermarket. You will find it easiest to cut your candies and dried fruits with well oiled scissors and don't worry about the sizes as random cuts will make a pretty mosaic.

Again, it's up to you the quantity of fruit and how you want to mix the fruits and nuts. Some people lightly fill their cakes with fruit while others are heavy handed. To bake, use only a shiny metal pan to prevent excessive browning of the cake and the fruit pieces that touch the pan. This will need to be lined with wax paper or an alternative to insulate the batter and protect from breaking or sticking when it is to be removed.

Cooking fruit cake can take as long as 31/2 hours. Be prepared to let your fruit cake cool down from 20 to 60 minutes after baking. This is important as these hot cakes are heavy and susceptible to breaking apart.