Fruit Cake: A Christmas Tradition on the Canadian Prairies
Ah, fruitcake. My Great Aunt Lucille made the best light fruitcake. I preferred it when I was young. Most likely, the lack of molasses was key to my young palate, yet the candied pineapple with coconut probably added to its charm as both were delicacies. She used whole almonds with bark on. I couldn’t understand how thin the slices could be and how easily the almonds were to slice through. I grew to appreciate and revere the traditional Christmas fruit cake. Making it was a production. Brushing it with rum, or whisky, or brandy or bourbon was a production. Each woman had their way with their cake and how they made and aged it to burgeoning ripeness. Everyone made the dark cake and some made both.
Canadian Christmas Cake or Bourbon Fruit Cake: Making the Batter
Mis en Place is an important step with this many ingredients in a recipe…
Prepare the pans, soak the fruit, sift dry ingredients together, toast the nuts… the preparation takes time, but is so important. With every step, you read and re-read the recipe, thus less room for error.
This is not a process that is to be rushed. This is an age-old Canadian Christmas Tradition. Make the time to enjoy the process. Put on some great music. Don a pair of comfy house slippers. Get your fancy wiggle on, and proceed!
The batter itself is gorgeous but disappears once added to the incredible mass of saturated boozy fruit and toasty nuts.
Canadian Christmas Cake or Bourbon Fruit Cake: Baking the Cakes
Divide batter carefully into pans. If using smaller pans like I did this year, you need to do the math to determine the volume and translate accordingly to ensure you will have no waste. Otherwise, use regular sized pans.
Not only is this size perfect for gift giving, but I also find them perfect for personal use. I unwrap only one at a time and the others stay fresher that way. You can see they rise very little, therefore, each pan is filled right to the brim with batter.
Canadian Christmas Cake or Bourbon Fruit Cake: Curing and Preserving the Cakes
Such beauties. I find it a sacrilege that so many abuse fruitcakes and make such fun of them. Fine. Everyone does not have to like them. However, the tradition of making a fruit cake in one form or other, theoretically in Rome in the middle ages and spread rapidly throughout Europe at that time as it was so enjoyed. Why not now? Likely due to the exorbitant amount of sweet food and junk food available now. Just a guess. But I can imagine how deeply divine these heavy nut and fruit-laden cakes used to be and how excited families were to partake of them during the holiday season hundreds of years ago.
I still look forward to them every year. When making them, I feel very closely connected to the many generations of my own family, and my human family as I practice such an ancient tradition, still now. Cheesecloth is soaked in the bourbon and wrapped around each cake to preserve and flavour each one.
Checking in every couple of weeks for the first 6 weeks to ensure the cakes are moist and sprinkling each cloth with a little more bourbon is necessary, yet balance is also key to ensure the cakes are not wet and saturate in it.
The idea is to keep the moist, to cure and flavour the cakes for preservation purposes. They can be frozen after three months, but should, theoretically, keep for a year, or so, in a cool, dark well-sealed container. I have known them to keep for three or more years under the right conditions. I freeze mine after Christmas for the following year.
Canadian Christmas Cake or Bourbon Fruit Cake: Tasting the Cake and Passing Granny’s Fruit Cake Test
When the fruit cakes were pronounced ready in my grandmother’s or mother’s kitchen, there was a scurrying from the pantry to the kitchen table. Unwrapping the test cake was a ritual. I would hold my breath. “Just smell this!” Mom would say, peeling away the foil victoriously presenting the soiled and stained aromatic cheesecloth swaddled package to our nostrils. The fragrance caught in the middle of my throat. A deluge of elixir lovingly soaked into the loaves; enough that just whiffing had me a little starry-eyed. Mom and dad quivered as the cheesecloth unwound releasing the pungent black moist bejewelled fruit cake. Slicing it was key.
Passing the fragrance and eye test was critical enough. Great Aunt Lucille’s mother, my mom’s dad’s mother, and my great-grandmother, Granny Annie Anderson, had one clearly defined rule that the perfect Canadian Christmas Fruit Cake must pass: it should be able to be sliced so thin that when holding it up to a window, one can see through the candied fruit and the slice should look like a gorgeous piece of stained glass.
Success! I actually prefer the no-nuts version, now that I have made it with nuts again. They are tasty, but I prefer the look without them. The glass is more “see-through” and it reminds me more of my old family cakes. You can also see why leaving the cherries whole is important. That is Beavie holding the piece up to the window for me.
Thinly Sliced
My mom and dad had their own criteria: the flavour test. Whatever taste memory they had built in over years and years of Christmas Fruit Cake making and baking and tasting and testing, both knew whether this year was a good one, or not, pretty much after one bite. Fortunately, almost all years were good ones, but some were exceptional. And when the cake could be sliced to Granny Anderson’s standard and taste tested to my mom’s, then we had the best fruit cake on the Canadian prairies that year.
Canadian Christmas Cake or Bourbon Fruit Cake: Gifting Your Fruitcake
That was the year that mom would wish she had made more. That was the year that she would cut little sections from her loaf for sharing with her neighbours and friends. Her fruit cake next to theirs on the Traditional Christmas Goodie Plate: there was just no comparison. Of course, we were well-bred children and knew to compliment both, but the celebration for mom would be coming home to hear how much better her cake was than so-and-sos. That was just the way it was.
When someone gifted you with a section of their fruit cake, you knew it was a very good year at their house, and there was a little tremor in the hand accepting that gift. Usually, it was never better than our own, however, what disgrace if another cake surpassed my own mother’s. She took serious pride in her reputation for having the most spotless house on the block, and consistently aspired to be the best cook and baker in the neighbourhood, and most definitely the best Christmas Fruit Cake Baker, as well.
There was no contest, as for me, she was.
And, that is how I have grown into being a connoisseur of Christmas Fruit Cakes. A very honest route to this métier.
Homemade Christmas Fruit Cakes have now become an endangered species on the Canadian prairies. No one I know makes them. No one. I have people to take mine to, but no one to seat my slice beside on the equally endangered Traditional Canadian Christmas Goodie Platter. One may think that eases the pressure of making the best Fruit Cake, but it doesn’t. I still have both mom and dad to please. Their learned palate approval of my homemade Fruit Cake remains a coveted trophy. I am a novice in the Fruit Cake making world, as I didn’t learn to make this cake at the hip of my own mother. I have floundered through it on my own, and hope to one day, reign triumphant. At least, in my own mind.
The Christmas Fruit Cake is as fundamental to a Canadian Christmas as the Christmas Tree itself. It is as much a part of the holiday feast as the turkey on the table. Even more, as there is this story to tell. These are my people. To share this tradition with my own children and future generations of my family are the ties that bind. It is these moments and these stories that have contributed to the character and integrity of this family through the lessons learned via our family rituals. Such is our homemade Christmas fruit cake.
Traditional Canadian Christmas Cake
One the prairies, one was measured by the flavour and texture of their dark fruitcake. Everyone made it. Everyone had an opinion. It is the bourbon that makes all the difference to me, in this exotic dark fruit cake. Makes 2 loaves or 5 small loaves. Must be made a minimum of 4 weeks before the holiday season.
Ingredients
- ¾ c softened butter
- 1 ¼ c firmly packed brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 ½ c all purpose sifter flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ cup dark molasses
- ½ cup brewed black coffee (or espresso)
- ½ cup bourbon
- 1 pound dark raisins
- ½ pound candied red cherries whole
- ½ pound candied green cherries whole
- ¼ pound candied orange peel chopped
- ¼ pound candied lemon peel chopped
- ½ pound chopped citron
- ½ pound dark pitted dates chopped
- 1 cup pecans toasted whole
- Bourbon for soaking cheesecloth in and brushing on
If Gifting Cake:
- ½ cup warmed red currant jelly
- Pecan halves , and candied cherry halves
Instructions
Instructions for Fruit
-
Place all fruit in large bowl; add bourbon and soak for 2-4 hours
Instructions for Fruit Cake
-
Preheat oven to 300°F and grease two 9 x 5 loaf pans 2 1/2 inches deep or five 5 3/4 x 3 pans 2 inches deep
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Line bottoms with parchment paper; butter it (the original recipe was waxed paper)
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Cream together butter and brown sugar; beat in the eggs.
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Sift all dry ingredients; beat into butter mixture
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Add molasses and brewed black coffee or espresso to mixture; combine well
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Fold in the nuts and bourbon soaked in fruit
-
Carefully pack the batter into the prepared pans almost to the top (I used an offset spatula to finish the tops of each cake)
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Place pans on centre rack of oven in a bain marie (place pans in a larger pan and pour hot water halfway up the sides); bake for 2 to 2 ½ hours, or until toothpick comes out clean (the small cakes took 50 minutes, so watch carefully after 45 minutes)
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If the tops brown too quickly, place foil over the top
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Cool 30 minutes, then remove and set on wire rack
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Wrap carefully in a triple layer of cheesecloth that has been soaked in bourbon
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Seal tightly in aluminum foil and store in a cool dry place until the holiday season
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Once a week, remove foil, and brush additional bourbon onto the cheese cloth
-
The longer it is stored, the more times it is dowsed, the more pungent and flavourful it becomes.
Recipe Notes
To Gift the Fruitcake:
Brush top of cake with warmed currant jelly; arrange pecan and cherry halves decoratively
Brush again with jelly; allow jelly to set completely
OPTIONS
I have made this cake without nuts and had good results; this year I added an extra cup of toasted crushed nuts for extra nuttiness, and may regret it due to the lack of clarity in the slice (which remains to be seen)
I sure hope that when my Traditional Canadian Prairie Christmas Fruit Cakes 2013 are cured that the images will evidence success. I hope I can show you a thinly sliced stained glass cake that has flavour like no other. Meanwhile, I brush the cakes lovingly each weekend, relish the aroma and pray for the best.
Lindsay (comment below) sent a photo of her Fruit Cake stained glass test. Bravo, Lindsay!
Dang! I was going to post about MY fruitcake! Actually, it’s been a ritual for me only since 1989 – I do the Victoria Magazine “Quick” fruit cake – which wins over non-fruit cake lovers every time…
Your post is beautiful and inspiring… I’m filming my third “episode” of Dale’s Delectables and will be making Christmas cookies and fruit cake… off to work!
Dear Dale!
Please do not think you cannot still post yours. There is already another sent in. By all means, please stick with your original plan.
Cannot wait to read all about it.
🙂
Valerie
Will definitely do then!
Hiya Valerie… reading this, as I drink my macchiato, I can almost smell all those wonderful aromas from here in Australia! I’ve not ever made a traditional fruit cake like this, although we used to run classes on how to make them in the cooking school that I co-owned. Being Hungarian, it was something my mother never baked… and I can only eat it in small quantities… but do like a good one… and yours certainly ‘takes the cake!’
Back in the day I used to make a two toned fruit cake from Canadian Living to gift to family and friends. I know my parents appreciated it. It would have reminded them of their own childhoods.
Why is it, Valerie – that we did so many of those things “back in the day” and don’t do them now? Is it that we are waiting for grandchildren, or that there is so much else to buy that we buy instead?
I know that working out of the home definitely contributes to the lack of time we have to bake and cook, there is no doubt about that!
🙂
Valerie
Valerie, I have a very old family recipe for the richest, darkest fruit cake ever. It starts with “Take 8 pounds of assorted fruits and nuts, whatever is available. Place the fruits in your largest earthen bowl and dredge it with a gill of your finest single malt. Cover it with a clean linen cloth tied securely and let sit overnight.” Isn’t that priceless? I have made this but not for years as it takes 24 hours between the dredging, mixing and baking in a slow oven but so worth it. You need another gill of single malt for the curing process, which was always done in a large stoneware crock. A gill, if you’re not familiar with it, is 5 fluid ounces. The weekend closest to November 15th was always fruitcake making time when I was a child. The dark cake was always the favourite of dad and I but mom and my sister preferred the light cake, made with pineapple, red cherries and plump golden raisins.
Brendi!
What a gorgeous recipe. Do you know where it came from? Can you write out or better yet, scan it and send it? I would love a copy and the story behind it if you can find where you got it from. This is my first lesson on gill. I was just about to google it when I realized you didn’t make a typo. I am assuming that is old English… absolutely brilliant. These are the stories that we must tell. Can you imagine? And, yes, you probably can: “whatever is available.” And 8 pounds of it! I imagine that the fruit from the harvest was dried and collected specifically for this purpose… and the exotics bought and traded. I still remember the first time I saw a golden raisin. It was a bit of a shock til I thought about it, and then I wondered why I hadn’t seen them as often as the dark. I have my grandmothers earthen bowl… the size is stamped on the bottom. Size 12, I believe it was the biggest made. It is precious. And, I have her earthenware butter churn that I use for a crock when I need one, so I am set. It is just that a gill seems like such a small amount! 🙂 I actually used 4 ounces to soak my cheesecloth. I would have used whatever it took. Then, interestingly, it took 3 ounces to brush on the tops the first week… so, we are looking at a few gills come the holidays.
🙂
Valerie
I love fruit cake! My grandmother would make it every Christmas, but so few people make it these days. It’s such a tragedy.
Do you make it Laura? Who, in your family, has taken on your grandmother’s role?
🙂
Valerie
(I sure hope someone has kept her recipe!)
Valerie, here it is:
Take 8 pounds of assorted fruits and nuts, whatever is available. Place the fruits in your largest earthen bowl and dredge it with a gill of your finest single malt. Cover it with a clean linen cloth tied securely and let sit overnight. Roast the nuts until golden and fully scented and stir into the fruit. In another bowl combine 3 cups of your finest milled and sifted flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp allspice, 3/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cloves, making sure you have completely ground your spices with your pestle. Combine 1 cup freshly churned butter with 2 cups darkest brown sugar, beating well until all of the sugar is creamed, add 4 large new laid eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each one. Sift in the flour mixture, a little at a time, alternating with another gill of your finest single malt. Beat the batter smooth after each addition. Stir in the fruits and nuts and have all family members take a turn stirring, starting with the eldest, each person making a wish for the Yule season as they stir, until all persons present have blessed the cakes. Generously butter 2 pieces of brown paper, cut to fit your loaf pans, with enough paper to fold over the top of each cake. Line the loaf pans and pour in the batter. Place a pan in the bottom of the oven and add 2 cups water to it. Bake in a slow oven (300F) for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, watching to make sure it doesn’t brown too quickly, folding the excess paper over the tops if needed. It will be done when a clean straw from your broom comes out clean when poked in the centre of the cakes. Allow the cakes to completely cool, then remove from the paper and wrap in cheesecloth. Saturate the cloth with single malt and place them in your crock, closing the lid tightly. Each week thereafter check the cakes for freshness and add more single malt as needed. Allow at least 6 weeks to ripen well, then slice thinly. The first slices should not be taken until after Evensong service on Christmas Eve.
I absolutely love this recipe and the directions about using only the finest and freshest ingredients always bring a smile to my face. This was truly a labour of love. My family is Scots-Irish and this came down from the Scottish side. We have no idea how old it actually is but my dad remembered his great grandmother making it and he was born in 1922, which would date it back to the 1850’s or 1860’s and was probably passed on before then. It is well worth the work. I do hope you try this one year. The small glimpses into my ancestor’s lives is priceless.
Brendi
Thank you for sharing this precious recipe with me and my readers. I do think your family name should be on it, Brendi, if you don’t mind, and for ownership purposes… if you can add that back onto it – or send it to me and I can edit it in. That is about the most precious recipe I have read. Truly. It sounds like a goal for next year… but maybe I will do only 4 pounds of dried fruit?
🙂
Valerie
Valerie, of course you can add our family name to it, our last name is Walls. We have lots of old recipes we have passed on over the years and happily share with all the cooks we know as that is the best way to ensure they don’t disappear into the mists. I hate it when I hear someone say “my mother used to make the best …. but I don’t have the recipe”. We have my great aunt’s biscuit recipe that she got from her grandmother or maybe her great grandmother and they have to be the easiest, lightest biscuits I have ever made or tasted. Great aunt Nora’s banana bread that has baking soda stirred into the buttermilk, a quick bread that is a standard in most homes but this one is so yummy. These old recipes are the ones we need to keep sharing, especially now when so many people think that cooking from scratch is a chore. I cringed when I saw a new cookbook of “500 easy family recipes” only to discover they were all based on mixes and premade dishes to which you added a tiny bit of real food. That is not cooking!
The fruit cake recipe makes several pounds, feel free to cut it in half if you wish. One year my dad doubled the recipe so we would have some left so he could have fruit cake for his birthday instead of the usual cake. Too funny but it was his favourite cake. We had fruit cake all year and no one minded at all.
Brendi
What a delightful treat to time travel here, Valerie. I’ve never made fruitcake and have only had the fortune to witness the production a couple of times but never in my own home. My maternal grandmother, who hailed from near you, made it every year, but she was a teetotaller … and so it wasn’t until my young adulthood that I ran into my first 40-day fruitcake that had been carefully basted with rum throughout its life. My eyes popped when I ate that … and I was happily gifted with one of those cakes for many more years whilst I lived in Calgary. Clearly my reaction was the right one. 🙂 But truly, what you weave in your story is pure art, both in the telling and in the love and attention it takes to create such a treasured confection. I’ve always loved fruitcake, always sat in that strange minority, and always wanted to make my own. Thank you for sharing a treasured recipe and I look forward to taking the plunge next year. Yum!
Hey Dale…
I am no expert, yet… working at it. Cannot wait to see if this batch passes “the family test”. Sure hope so!
🙂
Valerie
This post brings back memories of my mom lovingly carrying on the Christmas fruit cake tradition from her mother! It is her must-make Christmas recipe and gift, but sadly she never convinced any of her 5 daughters to love it…I almost want to carry on the tradition just for it’s own sake, whether I love the cake or not!
Hey, Anna,
That is actually kind of what I am doing. I do enjoy the cake. A piece, or two… over the season… but even the smallest recipe makes much much more than that. So, about every two years I make a batch and give half or more away. I save a cake for the following year as it will definitely last that long. I was wondering about whether I should date each of these and age them over the next five years, and take notes. I think I have too many people expecting cake, but that would be fun!
🙂
V
I have so many fruit cakes recipes to try from the old days in Québec. Yours turned out beautiful. I should be your neighbor and we would eat it together 🙂
If you are able to come to the Food Bloggers Conference In October, I will bring some for us to Eat Together!
XO
Valerie
One day I will tackle fruitcake….Mike and I both love it, unlike so many people, we’re always given a hard time LOL.
Ah! Good to know! Who makes yours in your family? Or, do I need to run you over a little cake?
🙂
V
I have made this fruitcake for the last two years and it’s wonderful. I give loaves to my siblings and best friend for Christmas and they LOVE it. It reminds us of our mother’s fruitcake very much. Even my roomie who never liked fruitcake thinks it’s great.
My dear Stacey,
You have warmed me all over by leaving this lovely comment. I love this recipe so much and am so happy you do, as well. I find I make it every other year. My batch is so big, and I make the small loaves for serving and gifting the first year – and have enough to use, but not gift year two. So, my friends that love fruitcake are really ready for it as they only get it every other year from me!
🙂
Valerie
was wondering on your christmas fruit cake if rum can be used instead of bourbon…..or is it better??
HI Debra,
It is simply personal preference… but I loved the bourbon and it makes a significant difference to the flavour from rum.
🙂
Valerie
Valerie I have been searching for years for an authentic Canadian Christmas Fruit Cake recipe and to my delight finally came across yours! I have been enjoying your readers comments and can’t wait to make and enjoy this recipe with my family and friends during the 2016 Holiday Season. Unfortunately my Mother did not make Christmas Cakes so a family recipe was not passed down through the generations. I am starting anew now with yours as both my daughters and granddaughters love fruit cake with almond paste or marzipan topping. I do remember enjoying a light fruit cake at my Auntie Jean’s during holidays past that was made with cherries and nuts only, however, I prefer the very dark cake. I did make a three tier traditional wedding fruit cake back in 1976, however the recipe has long since gone astray. I plan to attempt the 8 lb fruit recipe for the 2017 Holiday Season and age it for a full year. I aged my wedding cakes for three months, dousing them weekly with dark Demerara rum.
Wonderful to hear from you, Lauraine!
I would love to hear back from you once you have baked these. Baking temp and time is key to have a lovely cake… well, everything is key – but when I first went to the smaller cake pans (the really small ones) that took some fiddling and I had to trash a couple of test cakes, so maybe be sure to start with the regular size, get to know your oven with the recipe and go from there. It’s easy in the good old fashioned way.
🙂
Valerie
I came across your recipe for your Burbon (I used rum) Christmas fruitcake recipe. I made it and it’s FANTASTIC!!! Reminds me of my childhood. I even thinly sliced it as you mentioned and I’m adorned how it does in fact look like a stained glass window. I took a picture of it, but couldn’t share it with you on here. One of the cherries sliced kinda looks like a heart! Thanks again for sharing your recipe. It will now be placed in my cookbook and will be an annual tradition. I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas!
Thrilled to hear this Lindsay! Have added your photo to the bottom of my post! Yeah!
Happy Holidays,
Valerie
Loved reading all this. I love Christmas baking, cookies, cakes and all. In recent years though I find it hard to find good ingredients for my fruit cake. The fruit mixes in the grocery stores are not what they used to be. Although I don’t use dates in my cake I may try that next year instead of the glace fruit. Although I don’t entertain as much as I used to now there are a couple of gentlemen in my family who rely on me for Christmas cake so I can’t let them down. As for cookies I always think of my grandmothers when I bake their recipes every Christmas.
Carol!
So excited to hear from you. Did you see yesterday’s post on Christmas cookies? If you bake some – send me the photo of your platter to include at the bottom of my post. I cannot wait to get a collection of Canadian holiday cookies from my readers! I do agree about the quality of candied fruit. There are places you can get it in Europe at outrageous prices where it is gorgeous. I suppose making your own is another option. HA!
Happy Holidays!
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
I’d love to try this recipe but I always have such a problem converting pounds to cups! I’ve been looking for a dark fruitcake recipe (who knows what happened to my grandmothers after she passed away) that shows the measurements in cups not pounds. I tried many over the years and have a varying degrees of success. I always think it’s because I’m guessing at how much fruit I should be using.
Hi Leanne,
I google for conversion amounts these days. You can find fairly accurate exchanges that way. Or, get a scale. 🙂 It is so worth it when you bake. I sure hope you try this recipe! Lovely to hear from you!
Hugs,
Valerie
the photos and dialogue suggest that the fruit needs to soak in the bourbon for a while but the actual instructions do not make any reference to this phase. should the fruit soak in the bourbon for a while before being mixed with the batter? thanks, paul
Thank you for that, Paul! Corrected.
🙂
Let me know how it goes! Happy Holidays to you!
Valerie
This sounds exactly what I’ve been looking for but am uncertain on the quantities. All your dried fruit is listed in poundage – when I do a google search of the equivalent in CUPS I get very mixed results. Would you be able to list the quantities in cups as well? Looking forward to making this remarkable sounding cake.
Sorry, Catherine
I always bake by weight for exactly that reason. When measuring using volume, the weight will vary considerably.
Can you get a little scale and weigh your ingredients? Converting the pounds to grams is straight forward enough.
🙂
Valerie
Hi Valerie, is there a total of 1/2 cup of bourbon or is it 1/2 cup to soak plus 1/2 cup for the batter?
HI Coco
The total is 1/2 cup – soak the fruit in it and add all to the batter. 🙂
Valerie
I’ve been dreaming of fruitcake lately and your recipe and writing have inspired me to make my own! I like your choice of bourbon for this recipe.
Let me know if you make it! Love to hear how you like it!
🙂
Happy Holidays!
Valerie
Thank you so much for posting this!
I was wondering if you or anyone else can recommend a breadmaker that would be able to do this kind of fruit cake? Thanks!
This is a traditional recipe that is very very easy to put together. Gathering the ingredients is the hardest part. Are you meaning to bake it in or to mix it in? Mixing by hand is easy. Truly. And then it must be baked in a humid oven. I don’t think a breadmaker is an answer.
🙂
V
I was going through some of your recipes today, just to get an idea of what you “specialize” in, when I came across your article and recipe for fruit cake. It was always a family tradition in our house. Mom would get all the ingredients at the end of August and by mid-September we were up and running on the production part. Our family recipe has been handed down from generation to generation from on my mother’s side (Polish) …I don’t think anyone has dared to mess with it. Instead of Coffee, however, I recall my mother soaking the fruits in a wine barrel of peach and cherry brandy for about 3 weeks. She would also add a little of each to the batter along with the bourbon (she said it made the cake achieve the perfect colour). It seemed like hours and hours before those cakes would come out of the oven, and the aroma was always so soothing. When they cooled enough they would be wrapped in two layers of soaked cheesecloth then wax paper, then foil and put into our clod storage room in the basement. No one was allowed anywhere near them until Thanksgiving (we got a small taste at that time). Then no one would see them again until Christmas…best part of the week.
What a lovely story, Ann! Thank you so much for sharing. It is these little episodes I love to read…. such wonderful home memories!
🙂
Valerie
When you say to ripen the cake in a “cool dry place”, can you offer more details about what you mean by this? I am making fruitcake for the first time this year and I find varying opinions about this. Some bakers say to put it in the fridge or freezer, while others caution against this, claiming it will halt the ripening process. I, too, live on the Canadian prairies, so “cool” is a bit of a relative term! (Snow tires go on before Halloween!) Do you store your cakes indoors? In the fridge? In the garage?! (I think probably not because of rodents, but it never hurts to ask!) Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Hey, Sara!
Thrilled to hear you are making our Traditional Canadian Fruit Cakes this year. I need to do it this year again, too – so thank you for the reminder as now is the time! It used to be the basement, as they were unfinished and much cooler, but now it is the garage, for me, inside of an airtight container to keep away the bugs. If you do keep your basement cooler, that is a good spot. Cooler than room temperature, not as cold as the fridge. Once they have cured for 3 months, I always freeze mine. I usually make them every 3 years, or so.
Hope this helps!
Great big Canadian Prairie Hug to you!
Valerie
Thanks so much! Into the garage they will go. Many thanks!
Can’t wait to hear how they taste!
:)V
Have been collecting ingredients to make my Christmas cakes for last couple of months, and will start them today. I thought I would peruse recipes while drinking morning coffee (although I seem to always use an old recipe that was based on my grandmother’s and perfected to my husband taste) to see other variations. I love reading your stories and noting the similarities and differences to our BC raised family recipes.
I still use my mom’s old 2 piece cake pans that come in 3 sizes with two layers of buttered brown paper …soak my fruit and wrap with apricot brandy soaked cheese cloth.
My husband’s family also had tradition of everyone stirring and making a wish that we adopted with our children.
It is a dying tradition though I also have a few old friends that count on me for their portion. As well as their jar of green tomato mincemeat.
A great trip down memory lane… Thanks!
Thank you, Sue!
What a lovely sharing and sincerely appreciated from your new friend and die-hard “keep the family traditions alive” kind of gal.
🙂
Valerie
Hi! We had the same tradition in our family! My Mum was a war bride from London! Love to keep these traditions alive!!!
Big hug, Carol!
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
I am presently making your Christmas cake recipe. I have a question about the instructions. It calls for 1/2 cup of bourbon to soak the fruit in, which I did. Now in the cake instructions it says to add bourbon. I am not clear if was meant to divide the half cup bourbon or if there is additional bourbon to be added to the cake that was not included in the ingredients list. I have read over a number of times and just can’t find an additional quantity of bourbon.
Thank you for this lovely recip, I am sure it will be magnificent even though I am shy on the time for it to mature. Holiday blessings to you.
Candis
So sorry for the confusion Candis!
Recipe has now been corrected. Late reply because I was away on a holiday. Bourbon is soaked in the fruit and will be added with the fruit.
Let me know how it tastes!
Happy Holidays!
Valerie
Loved reading your post Valerie! I am one of the weirdos who makes fruitcake for Christmas. I always make a round cake (in a 9″ springform pan) and I decorate the cake with nuts and cherries before baking. For gifting, I cut wedges -sized acccording to the appetite/enthusiasm of the recipient. I usually use Brandy for the booze but you have inspired me to try Bourbon this year. I will be making my cakes this weekend. Can’t wait till “Evensong on Christmas Eve” to see how it tastes!
I look forward to your answer (the taste) Brenda! Always lovely to meet another publically self-declared “weirdo who makes fruitcake for Christmas”!
Cheers (and lots of that, too!)
Valerie
Just in the middle of making your fruitcake , late I know but I can still eat in in the new year haha
I can’t see in the instructions what to do with the coffee, although it say “add molasses and to mixture” , so I’m assuming the word “coffee” got left out?
I’m adding it with molasses anyway so keeping fingers crossed!
Just thought I should bring it to your attention!
Thanks for the recipe!
Thank you Sue!
How did that happen! You are absolutely right. That is right where it goes and it has been updated and corrected.
Let me know how it turns our for you!
Happy Holidays!
Valerie
I have been making Christmas cakes for 50 years now, and coming from Britain it was a tradition for me to make them, started off with making one, then two, them it became 6. Still love making them and the house smells amazing. In Britain I used treacle to get that dark colour, now I live in Canada, and use Molasses, the taste seems the same and give that rich colour. Just two tablespoons makes a good colour. Lots of mixed fruit which I soak for a week in Sherry and dark rum. I use nutmeg and cinnamon and vanilla for flavour. Glad to hear so many people still make such loved cakes.
What a lovely message! Share your recipe!
🙂
Valerie
Hey Valerie,
I have a choice of brandy, rum or Kentucky bourbon so I looked up a bourbon recipe as I am unlikely to use any of these unless I cook with them. So I found your recipe and while the Canadian Prairie is a long way from hot and sunny South Australia, I’ve chosen your lovely recipe. I have a niece studying in Calgary so this can be gesture for her absence at our Christmas this year. I may put a few dried figs in it as we all enjoy figs.
Many thanks for your lovely blog,
Kate
Thank you!
Let me know when how it works for you.
🙂
This is my fifth year making your wonderful Christmas cake recipe Valerie. It is a joy to keep the tradition going. Thank you.
The citron called for in your recipe is not available locally. Do you know a good substitute? lemon and lime?
Is it just the peel? dried? candied?
Thanks for your help.
Unfortunately, few bakers make this anymore, thus the disappearance of lemon and orange and citron peel offerings at holiday time in local grocery stores. So sad they did not give notice.
¼ pound candied orange peel chopped – can be accessed via Amazon
¼ pound candied lemon peel chopped – can be accessed via Amazon
½ pound chopped citron – I use the mixed peel which includes citron or this portion
Hope this helps.
Happy 2024!
Valerie