Fruit and Nuts Cake

Dessert, Desserts

A proper French loaf cake packed with rum-soaked dried fruits and toasted nuts, with a golden crust and a dense, moist crumb that gets better every day. Once cooled, it keeps for several weeks in a tin box. That is, if you can stop eating it long enough to find out.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 40 minutes mins

Servings 4

Ingredients 

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For the fruit and nut mixture

• 50 gr raisins
• 50 gr dates
• 50 gr dried figs
• 50 gr dried apricots
• 50 gr almonds
• 50 gr hazelnuts
• 50 gr walnuts
• 60 ml dark rum or substitute warm tea if you prefer no alcohol

For the cake

• 150 gr unsalted butter softened
• 100 gr caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 225 gr plain flour
• 7 gr baking powder

Equipment

small saucepan

mixing bowl

whisk

wooden spoon

Loaf pan

parchment paper

Instructions

1. Soak the fruits

• Put the dried fruits in a small saucepan with the rum. Warm gently over low heat until the fruit swells and absorbs the rum.

2. Cream the butter and sugar

• In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the sugar until pale and well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

3. Add the fruits

• Stir the soaked fruits into the batter along with 3 to 4 tablespoons of the macerating liquid. Mix well.

4. Add the flour

• Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the batter. Add just enough flour so that the fruits cling to the spoon rather than sinking to the bottom. The batter should be thick but not heavy. Do not add too much flour.

5. Bake

• Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan. Line the loaf pan with one or two layers of baking parchment. Pour in the batter and place in the oven.

  After 20 minutes, the cake will have risen. At this point, reduce the temperature to 160°C / 140°C fan and continue baking for 1 hour 30 minutes, checking the colour from time to time. The cake is done when a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.

6. Cool and store

• Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning out. Once cooled, wrap in baking parchment and store in a tin box. It keeps for several weeks and genuinely improves with time.

Notes

• The fruit mixture is entirely up to you. Raisins alone work well. A mix of raisins, figs, dates, and apricots gives more complexity. Use whatever you have and you like.
• If you prefer not to use rum, warm tea works just as well for soaking the fruit.
• Flour tip: The batter needs to be thick enough to suspend the fruit. If everything sinks to the bottom, add a little more flour and fold again.
• The two-temperature baking is the key to the texture. The initial high heat gives the cake its rise and crust. The lower temperature cooks it through slowly without drying it out.
• This cake is excellent sliced and eaten as it is, but also very good with a little salted butter on each slice.

About this recipe

This is a fruit and nuts cake that got passed down by my dear neighbour Brigitte. This too was so addictive that I had to ask her for the recipe to share it with you. She told us that this cake keeps for several weeks in a box. But added that it probably won’t last that long, and it didn’t. This cake is best with coffee or tea, and I promise you, you will keep going back for more.

What makes this french fruitcake different

The fruitcake is a staple of French home baking, particularly in autumn and winter when dried fruits and nuts are in abundance. It is simpler than a British Christmas cake, I heard you need to take a couple of days out of your agenda to do that one, and less dense than a traditional fruitcake. The rum-soaked fruit keeps the crumb moist, the nuts add texture, and the whole thing improves over several days as the flavours settle and deepen. Although like I said earlier, it really doesn’t last that long before your cake box is empty.

This is the best fruitcake precisely because it makes no attempt to be anything other than what it is: a generous, honest fruit & nut cake made from good healthy ingredients, baked slowly, and left to improve in your cake box. There are no fancy decorations or elaborate techniques, like many recipes it is simple yet delicious.

The flour tip

The only thing you have to be aware of so your nuts and dried fruit don’t sink to the bottom during baking, it to adjust your flour quantity a little bit if necessary. Be careful though, if you put too much, the crumbs will become heavy and dry. Brigitte’s method of testing by whether the fruit holds to the spoon is the right way to judge it. You don’t need any scales, just a good eye and the confidence to trust what you are seeing.

If the fruit is sliding off the spoon when you lift it, add a little more flour and fold again. The batter should be thick enough to suspend the dried fruit evenly throughout the loaf rather than letting it settle at the base.

The two-stage baking

The two-stage baking is worth paying close attention too. It’s important to start baking at a higher temperature first to set the rise and forms the characteristic golden crack along the top of the loaf, which is the visual signature of a properly made french fruitcake. After the initial twenty minutes of high temperature, you can drop to a lower heat which allows the inside to cook through slowly without the outside overcooking or the crust hardening too early.

You might think an hour and a half at 160°C is quite long for a loaf cake. But this is a dense, well-loaded fruitcake and it needs all the time. Do not be tempted to open the oven early or increase the temperature to speed things up. The slow bake is what produces the moist and even crumb that makes this cake still good three days after baking.

The rum

I understood later why I was so addicted to this cake, it was the rum. I’m only kidding. You don’t really taste the rum, yet it is doing real work in this fruit & nut cake. The alcohol softens the dried fruit, helping it absorb moisture and swell before the batter is even mixed. That absorbed liquid is what keeps the crumb of this french fruitcake moist through the long bake and during the days of storage that follow. If you prefer not to use alcohol, you can substitute it with whatever flavour of warm tea you like. The fruit absorbs it in the same way. The flavour of the finished cake might be different, but it will be equally good.

If you want to remove more alcohol from your fruits, you can flambé it. This will burn the alcohol out and will add a faint caramel note to your macerating liquid. Not mandatory, but worth trying out if you are comfortable with it.

The right loaf pan for a fruit and nuts cake

A dense, heavily loaded fruit & nut cake bakes best in a loaf pan that distributes heat evenly and holds a steady temperature throughout the long cooking time. Uneven heat produces uneven baking: the edges overcooking while the centre stays underdone. If you want to know more about loaf pans and which material to use for which bake, I have written an article about it here.

For this bake, I recommend the cast iron Staub loaf pan. The cast iron distributes heat evenly across the base and sides, which is what this best fruitcake needs during its long, slow second stage at 160°C. The even heat means the crumb sets at a consistent rate rather than firming up at the edges before the centre has caught up. It also retains heat steadily, which protects against the temperature fluctuations that can affect the texture of a cake baked at a low temperature for a long time.

Storing it

If you make this on a Sunday, the fruitcake will be at its best by Tuesday or Wednesday. And it will still be good the following weekend. You can either wrap it in baking parchment and keep it in a proper rectangular cake box, or cut slices and wrap carefully for the freezer. The flavours deepen as it rests, the dried fruit continues to soften slightly, and the rum works its way through the crumbs day by day. It is better if you wait, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to. I challenge you.