This fruitcake is light in color, and so nice and moist! If you don’t like the dark, heavier fruitcakes, try this one!
As a child, I watched my Aunt Gloria make this delicious fruitcake right after Thanksgiving for Christmas!
I updated her recipe just a bit with a glaze, but her techniques work so well and they guarantee success every time! She baked the cake in a paper-lined tube pan and she wrapped the baked cake in a brandy-doused cheesecloth and kept it in a tin for a month! I would lift the lid of that tin to get a whiff of all those wonderful fruity scents!
It takes a whole one-ounce bottle of brandy or rum extract. My preference is to use rum extract, but use brandy extract if you like that better.
Enjoy!
Fruitcake, Light in Color
Wrapped in a brandy or rum doused cheesecloth for a month, this light color fruitcake is to die for!
Servings:
Calories: 322
Equipment
- 9-inch Tube Pan
Ingredients
- FOR THE CAKE:
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ pound butter
- 4 egg yolks
- 2⅝ cup flour that is 2 ½ cup plus 1/8 cup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder heaping
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 bottle brandy extract or rum extract
- 3 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 package (15 ounces) golden raisins
- 1 cup walnuts chopped
- 1 bottle (10 ounces) maraschino cherries drained and sliced in half
- 1 ½ container candied glaced pineapple
- 4 egg whites
- FOR THE GLAZE:
- 4 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoon water
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup brandy or rum
Instructions
- Grease a 9-inch tube pan. Line it with brown paper. Grease the paper.
- With a mixer on medium speed, cream the sugar and butter until fluffy.
- Add the egg yolks and beat well. Set aside.
- In another medium bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.
- On lowest speed, add it to the egg mixture.
- Beat in the milk, rum extract, vanilla, raisins, walnuts, cherries, and pineapple. Put this batter into another bowl.
- With a mixer on highest speed, beat the egg whites until stiff.
- With a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake at 325° for 1½ hours or until a cake tester inserted comes out clean.
- Immediately turn the cake pan over and remove the paper. Turn the cake pan back right side up and continue cooling the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Meanwhile make the glaze while the cake is cooling.
- GLAZE: Mix the butter, water, and sugar in a medium saucepan on top of the stove. Over low heat, keep stirring until the glaze reaches a boiling point.
- Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes until it gets thick. Add the rum or brandy.
- Poke holes all over top of cake with a skewer. Spoon the glaze over the warm cake in the pan. Let the glaze seep into the holes.
- Completely cool the cake on the wire rack.
- Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake.
- Place a large piece of cheesecloth that has been doused in rum or brandy on a board.
- Invert the cake onto the doused cheesecloth. Wrap the cheesecloth around the cake.
- Carefully put the wrapped cake into a tin. Cover the tin.
- The cake is better if it has been preserved in the doused cheesecloth in the tin for a few weeks, even a month! If you want, you can rewrap the cheesecloth after a few weeks in a new doused cheesecloth.
Calories: 322kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 87mg | Sodium: 206mg | Potassium: 85mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 514IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 40mg | Iron: 1mg