Celebrate the holidays with this festive fruit cake

’tis the time to start making your festive fruit cake! This fruit cake, courtesy of Hendrik Pretorius from his book, The Sweet Side of Life due to be published in 2023, is plump with candied ginger, fig puree, dried apricots, almonds, dates, and cherries.

Ingredients

• 100g dates
• 100g raisins
• 50g sultanas
• 30g currents
• 2 tablespoons candied ginger in sugar syrup, finely cut
• 2 tablespoons fig puree
• 95g dried apricots
• 25g red cherries
• 25g green cherries
• 300ml brandy
• 50g soft brown sugar
• 50g dark brown sugar.
• 100g butter
• 100g all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 65g whole blanched almonds, chopped
• 25g fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground coffee
• 2 large eggs

Method

1. Start by cutting the dates and dried apricots into small pieces and placing them into a container, along with the sultanas, raisins, currents, red cherries, green cherries and 100ml of the brandy.
2. Close the container and let the fruit soak in the brandy for at least one week.
3. Open the container, pour a further 100ml of brandy over the fruit, close, and leave for a further week. Now you are ready to make your cake.
4. Position an oven shelf in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 150°C.
5. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and place baking paper on the bottom the pan.
6. In a standing mixer or using a hand mixer, blend the cream, butter and both brown sugars, then add the eggs one at a time mixing in between each one, until light and fluffy. Then add the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, salt, and coffee powder.
7. Next, add the brandy-soaked fruit and – if there is any brandy left – add that too, as well as the almonds and finely chopped ginger and combine well.
8. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan, cover with parchment paper and bake for 1 hour, checking at regular intervals with a cake tester. If it comes out clean, remove the cake and leave it in the pan to cool down.
9. After cooling, remove from the pan, wrap in aluminium foil, followed by clingfilm and store it in the fridge.
10. Once a week, up until the day you slice into it, unwrap the cake and brush it all over with a little brandy and then rewrap it and place it back in the fridge. By doing this, the fruit will develop more flavour and mature and enhance the taste of the cake.
11. When wrapped in foil and clingfilm and stored in the fridge, a freshly baked fruitcake will keep well for about six months so it can be made well in advance.