Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Baking & Storing Fruit Cakes.
Baking a fruit cake is a little different than regular cakes.. In this Fruit cake 101 you will find tips for baking the perfect fruit cake and tips for storing your fruit cake weather you make yours with alcohol or fruit juice.
Fruit Cake 101
I know Christmas is coming so everyone has almost started with the Fruit cake preparations.
To those of us that have been doing fruit cakes for years ; it’s just a regular cake. For those that are just starting out; it’s quite unnerving when people tell you – Fruit cake is different? How is it different? Why is it different? and What do I need to do differently.
How is Fruit Cake Different?
- Well, it has so much more than just four egg and butter? The real difference is the addition of all those gorgeous fruits.
- Most often we eat our cakes baked fresh, but not a fruit cake. Usually a fruit cake is well preserved, fed with alcohol over weeks before the special day.
- If you do not follow the right process for storing fruit cake you could end up with a moldy fruit cake which is not very pleasant
- Most cakes are decorated with buttercream, ganache fondant and such but a traditional fruit cake is brushed with orange marmalade, then wrapped in Marzipan and then covered in Royal Icing or sometimes Fondant.
Fruit cake reminds of mom…!!
Yes! my mom baked cakes a lot. In fact she took orders for cake but never decorated them. So I remember the once July sets in she’d soak her fruits, once October sets in she’d start making her preparations and arrangements to make sure she has a nice cozy cool corner for the fruit cakes to season. That’s what she’d call them season. She was very good at baking so she’d get book way in advance. But she only took that much orders and I’d tell her – mama you should take more orders so we can be rich.! But she’s say – No thank you I’m over booked. Well, now you know where I got my baking germ from.
Ah well. let’s gt back to our Fruit cake – shall we?
First – Fruit Cake 101 – I have already given you my recipe for my Rich Fruit Cake –
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for baking and Storing the perfect Fruit Cake
I have complied a few tips that I think are really important to know when baking a fruit cake. I do hope you find them useful. If you have any more suggestions please put them in the comment below. We’d love to hear them.
Tips for Baking a perfect Fruit Cake – Fruit Cake 101
- Always soak the fruit – at least over night it will soften and make the cake moist
- Dust the fruit in flour before you add to the batter so they will not sink to the bottom of the pan.
If the fruit is wet, drain excess liquid and dust with flour just before adding to the batter - You can add the liquid in which the fruit was soaked to the batter separately. (unless you want to limit quantity of alcohol)
- Fill the pan only 2/3 full not more
- Line the baking pans on all sides to avoid burning due to the long slow cooking.
- I prefer to line pan plus add cake strips to avoid the outter edges drying.
- Ensure oven temperature is low so the batter will cook evenly without drying out the fruit
- Add some water to the baking tray around the pan or a small bowl of water in the oven to help keep the cake moist.
MIXED SPICES AND FLAVORS.
- Mixed spice is generally made with Cinnamon, ginger powder, cloves, all spice and nutmeg sometimes even caraway seeds, cardamom and cayenne.
- Cannot get mixed spice ? add 1/8 tsp each of ground Cinnamon, ground ginger, ground clove and or ground all spice.
- Don’t like the above spices or can’t find them? – add the Cinnamon and 1 tsp vanilla or 1/2 tsp almond extract
- If you are going to use orange marmalade to brush the fruit cake later you could add 1/2 tsp of orange extract to enhance the flavors)
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Baking and Storing the Perfect Fruit Cake.
This was of course one of our Tip Thursdays on Facebook recently – I have now compiled them on the blog.
You can find more of these under Tip Thursday as well as Pin them on Pinterest
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Baking the Perfect Fruit Cake
Tips for Storing Fruit Cakes – Fruit Cake 101
In general – you can store Fruit cake at room temperature for one month, refrigerator for six months, Freezer for up to a year!!!
To ensure you have a nice moist fruit cake.
- Take a muslin/cheese cloth soaked in rum, brandy or fruit juice Wrap the cake well with this liquor / fruit soaked cheese cloth.
- Cover the wrapped cake in aluminum foil.
- Do not let the aluminum touch the cake directly. The acid in the liquor will corrode the foil and effect the flavor of the cake.
- Place the cake in an airtight plastic box.
- Keep away from direct sunlight.
More Tips –
- The liquor / juice soaked muslin/cheese cloth can be refreshed every month to ensure a moist fruit cake.
- Place an apple in the box with the fruit cake to help keep moisture.
Extended Length storage – more than a year. cover the alcohol soaked fruit cake in Powder sugar, then in plastic and then in a air tight container.
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Baking and Storing a Perfect Fruit Cake
Again this was our Tip Thursday – you can find them all on this blog and Pin them on Pinterest here to
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Storing Fruit Cake
So again. If you have any of your own tips you like to add or tricks to share with us feel free to put them in the comments. We’d love to hear them.
Don’t forget to save this tutorial on Pinterest for later.
You can find a collection of my tutorials and recipes here on Pinterest
Fruit Cake 101 – Tips for Baking and Storing Fruit Cakes
Want the Recipe for – The BEST Rich Fruit Cake Recipe? Try my tried and tested recipe this Christmas
Do you like baking? Then you may like to check out some of my cookie and cake recipes to try this holiday season.
Click here to see a list of the full Recipe Index to see all recipes available on this blog.
BEST Fruit cake recipe ever Veena. I’ve been making your recipe for years. Bookmarked it and here I am again.
Thank you, Elimi. So happy that this recipe worked well for you and you enjoy it every year. Thank you so much for coming back to write this feedback. Love to hear from those who tried my recipe.
Thank you so much for these tips. They are so straightforward and well explained. The other blogs were so confusing.
Thank you, Gretra. So happy you found this article useful.
Hie
Wow I enjoyed going through your blog and all my questions where answered.thank you for your time and efforts
Thank you Yeu – So happy to hear that.
Thank you for this detailed post. I really got all my questions answered. Appreciate the time you take to write things in detail.
So happy to hear that all your questions were answered with this post. Feel free to ask any questions if you have anytime. Thanks you .
The recipes and tips are awesome… Just one question .
When we Take a muslin/cheese cloth soaked in rum, brandy or fruit juice Wrap the cake well with this liquor / fruit soaked cheese cloth. I put this wrapped cake in the fridge or keep it in a container at room temperature?
Snehal. These are actually kept at room temperature in a cool dark place. Back in the old days they use to not have fridge so this was a preserving method to keep the cake for longer times.
My question is, when storing in powder sugar, do you cover just the top of cake, chesecloth with powdersugar, or do you bury the whole cake with the sugar, then place in tin…and also do you once monthly unwrap cloth to liquor or do you brush top of cheesecloth with liquor. Or do you do nothin with cake, once it is in powdersugar bed.
Hi Janet – Yes you actually cover the whole cake in powder sugar. The sugar works as a preservative which is why you can keep it longer than a year or more. I remember my mom say you can keep it for over 10 years. Honestly never tried it.
My mom would brush the cake with liquor that way she could also keep an eye on what’s really happening. I remembers she’d do it in cool dark part of the room with a small light.!! The liquor is only for the first few weeks. After that once it’s in powder sugar you do not need to add more liquor. There is enough in there already.
Your tips was definitely helped me a lot. Thanks for that. I baked my first one yesterday. I experienced a few problems, but that is I believe not so surious.
Thank you Cora. So happy to hear that it was successful. Would love to know what problems you had so may be I can advice and it may help others who are trying the recipes as well. Thanks
I have never actually had fruit cake and had no idea it was preserved with alcohol. Yours looks amazing! Thanks for all the tips!
Yeah Melissa.. it’s an old English Fruit Cake delicacy that has been lost to the rest of the world. Though it’s still big in England. And of course in India being a British colony
I have to say, I was never a fan of fruit cake but as I get older… I really appreciate them! The smell of them just screams Christmas! As much as I like them.. it has to be a good one and yours looks gorgeous… all those fruits and it looks so moist. Think I’ll have to try this out and make my first ever fruit cake!!
Aww thank you Kristen. I do hope you try it – it’s really simple and I have a great recipe for you too. <3
A few years ago we made fruit cake. We used rum on some and brandy on the others. Homemade fruit cake is so good. It is a labour of love for a few months…but so worth the effort.
That is true ! It is a labor of love. Thanks for the comment
I of course heard about fruit cakes and tried them (they sell them at the Christmas market around here) but I never knew it could be stored for so long! Is it the alcohol that preserves the cakes?
Yes, it is the alcohol Julia that’s what preserves the cake for so long. Glad you enjoy fruit cakes.