Orange-Cranberry and Nut Fruitcake

Blogging Marathon# 59: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Holiday Bakes

Dish: Orange and Cranberry Fruitcake

Merry Christmas to all of you.
We had a fun filled Christmas eve party with friends last night and today it's going to be another great to spend with family. My sister and my cousin are coming over for Christmas lunch, so the post is going to be rather short today :-)

I made this fruitcake to give as gift and this recipe is great for people like me who are not great at planning ahead and decide to make a fruitcake in the last minute. Recipe comes from King Arthur Flour and like all their bakes, this one turned out great. Here's the 90 minute fruitcake I made last year and here's the Vegan fruitcake I made the year before.
Fruitcake is usually associated with being dry and overly sweet but this one is a rich butter cake and is loaded with dry fruit and nuts. It also has some candied cherries and I read a tip on Chowhound to run some hot water on the store-bought cherries to remove the overly sweet goopiness and I think it worked out quite well.

Orange-Cranberry Nut Fruitcake

Ingredients:

• 2cups All purpose flour
• ½cup (1 stick) Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
• 1cup Sugar
• 1tsp Baking powder
• ½tsp Salt
• ⅛tsp Fiori di Sicilia
• 2 Large Eggs (or 2tbsp egg replacer whisked in 6tbsp water)
• ½cup Fresh Orange juice
• 1cup Dried Cranberries
• 1cup Mixed dry fruit (I used chopped dried apricots, pineapple, cherries and raisins)
• ¼cup Water or brandy or cranberry juice
• ¾cup Candied Red Cherries
• 1cup Pecans or Walnuts, chopped

Method:

1. Prepare the fruit: In a microwave safe bowl, combine the dried fruit (cranberries and all of the chopped dried fruit except for the cherries). Cover and microwave for 1~2 minutes, stir and set aside to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 6cup bundt cake pan or a standard loaf pan or 3~4 mini loaf pans.
3. Prepare the Cake: In a large bowl (or the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment), beat together butter, sugar, baking powder, salt and fiori fi Sicilia.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time (or the egg replacer mixture). Stir in the flour and orange juice alternately and beat until combined.
5. Add the undrained fruit, the candied cherries and nuts.
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan(s) and bake for 50~80 minutes depending on the size of the pan. The bundt cake pan will bake for 80 minutes and the loaf pan about 50 minutes. When done the cake will be light brown all over and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean.
7. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. If you baked the cake in a bake and give loaf pans like I did, just let them cool completely in the pan and then wrap as planned.
8. For the Glaze: Stir together 3tbsp Orange juice and 3tbsp sugar while the cakes are baking and then stir occasionally to make sure that the sugar dissolves.
9. Brush the warm cakes with the glaze after about 5 minutes of removing from the oven. Cool them completely and stored them well wrapped and let rest for at least 24 hours (or for up to a month, brushing with liqueur or flavored syrup weekly) before serving.

 

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 59.

This is also a part of the Bake-a-thon 2015.

  

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