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A rich fruit cake is the quiet hero of British home baking. It keeps for months, improves with age, and appears at christenings, weddings, Christmas tables and anniversaries of every kind. It is not a cheap bake — dried fruit, butter and spirits all add up — but it gives you something no supermarket can: a cake with depth, dampness and a warm scent of spice that lingers for hours. The method is old-fashioned and forgiving. Once the batter is in the tin, the oven does most of the work and time does the rest. Heritage flours can carry a good deal of the flavour.
The quality of a fruit cake is decided before the butter is creamed. Buy the best dried fruit you can, and use a mixture rather than a single type so that every slice tastes slightly different.
Tip everything into a large bowl, pour over the brandy and tea, stir well, cover and leave overnight. The fruit swells and softens, and the alcohol mellows. If you would rather avoid spirits, use the tea alone with the juice of an orange — the cake will still be excellent, though it will not keep as long.
Most traditional recipes call for plain flour, and that should stay the backbone of the mix. Heritage grains are where you add character. Stoneground wholemeal spelt or emmer brings a nutty, faintly sweet note; a little dark rye adds a gentle tang that sits beautifully with treacle and spice. These older grains are lower in gluten and thirstier than modern flour, so use them as part of the blend, never all of it.
Add the finely grated zest of an orange and a lemon, and a tablespoon of black treacle for colour and depth. For the batter you will also need 250g unsalted butter, 250g dark muscovado sugar and four large eggs.
Cream the butter and muscovado until pale and fluffy — give it a full five minutes. Beat the eggs in one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour mixture with each to stop it curdling. Fold in the remaining flour and spices, then the zest and treacle, and finally the soaked fruit. The batter will be very stiff; that is exactly right.
Line a 20cm round tin or an 18cm square tin with a double layer of greaseproof paper, and bring the paper 5cm above the rim as a collar to protect the top. Spoon in the mixture, level it, and bake at 140°C fan or 150°C conventional, gas mark 2, for three to three and a half hours. If the top colours too quickly, lay a sheet of greaseproof over it after two hours. The cake is ready when a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs but no wet batter. Leave it to cool completely in the tin — a hot fruit cake is fragile and will break if you move it too soon.
Once cold, prick the base all over with a skewer and spoon over two tablespoons of brandy or strong tea. Wrap the cake in greaseproof paper and then foil, and keep it in a cool, dark tin. Feed it every fortnight for up to three months; the flavour deepens with every dressing. Without alcohol, eat it within six weeks.
To serve, cut thin slices with a serrated knife. Marzipan and royal icing are lovely for a celebration, but a plain dusting of icing sugar suits a tea table just as well. In Yorkshire it is often eaten with a wedge of sharp Wensleydale, and that contrast of crumbly cheese and sweet, boozy fruit is hard to beat.
Wheat & Aster shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on british home baking and heritage grains for readers across the UK.
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