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Light Fruit Cake (Easy Holiday Baking)

Fluffy and tender cake studded with soaked fruit and citrus. Topped with marzipan and fondant to make the perfect Christmas cake for the festive season. It is simple to make and the most delicious tea cake for the holidays.
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Course Cake, Dessert, High Tea, Sweet tooth, tea time
Cuisine British, English
Servings 16 squares

Equipment

  • Mixing bowl
  • Whisk
  • Rubber spatula
  • 8x8 inch Square tin
  • Baking paper
  • Brush
  • Rolling Pin

Ingredients
  

  • 350 gm soaked dried fruit apricots, golden raisins, candied peel, etc*
  • 1 orange zest
  • 44 g castor sugar
  • 44 g brown sugar
  • 88 g butter soft
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 2 drops almond extract
  • 88 g flour
  • 5 g corn flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 tbsp brandy

For Decoration -

  • Ready made marzipan & fondant
  • Christmas sprinkles
  • Apricot jam
  • Brandy

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 150℃ and line an 8x8 inch square tin with butter and baking paper, set aside.
  • In a mixing bowl add the orange zest and sugar, rub together for a minute to release the oils from the orange zest. Add the butter and using a whisk beat together until pale and creamy - you could do this with an electric beater as well.
  • Add the eggs, vanilla, almond extract and beat again. It will look curdled and split but don’t worry about it.
  • Add the flour, soaked dried fruit, baking powder, salt and whisk until smooth.
  • Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55 minutes on until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  • While the cake is still warm I like to soak the cake with a little soaking liquid - this can be brandy or orange juice.
  • Allow the cake to to cool completely before decorating, check out the write up above on how I decorated this cake and more ideas. Don’t be afraid to slice and serve it as it is.

Notes

  • *To make this cake we need to soak your dried fruit to hydrate them. Ideally they are soaked in brandy, rum or a combination of alcohols. You could also soak them in fresh, unsweetened orange juice to add to the citrus flavor. This step can be done the night before and stored in an air tight jar, if using alcohol it doesn’t need the fridge but if using fruit juice it must be placed in the fridge. Around 5 tablespoon of liquid should suffice.
  • Check out my Soaking dried fruit recipe here
  • Alcohol free - to make this cake alcohol free replace the brandy with orange juice that has no added sugar in it. However fresh fruit changes the shelf life of this cake.