This easy family fruitcake recipe is amazing and perfect for Christmas and the holidays. It's the simpler fruitcake version with easier ingredients and steps. Delicious soft cake, with crispy edges, and a perfect ratio of candied fruits, raisins, and nuts.
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Why This Recipe Works
This is Marco's family's recipe that his mother has been making for Christmas since Marco was a little kid. So this recipe has been around for decades in his family. It represents the holidays and here's why we love this easy fruitcake recipe so much!
It's not a dense cake - You'll get a soft delicious cake with brown crispy edges. The ratio of candied fruits and nuts to the cake batter is just perfectly balanced. It's not the typical heavy, dense, overly sweet, and boozy fruitcake. In our biased opinion, it's the best fruitcake recipe ever!
Delicious cake with panettone essence - It has all the key ingredients in our classic panettone bread recipe, but in the cake version. We've put candied fruits, raisins, nuts, and citrus zest in this easy fruitcake recipe. The kitchen smells like heaven when this cake is in the oven, and the taste is amazing!
Easy - This is a straightforward recipe with easy ingredients and simple methods than most recipes out there. We're not using molasses or any syrups. There's no cooking the fruit mixture beforehand. No aging the fruitcake either. We like things simple and easy, like in our mini panettone with chocolate chips!
Success-guaranteed recipe - We've had our readers telling us they've made this easy fruitcake recipe successfully even on their first try. They loved it and have been making it as their Christmas fruitcake too!
Ingredients For This Recipe
Candied fruits - The candied fruits for fruitcakes that we use are the dried candied fruits, not the ones in jars that come in syrup. We love to use candied fruits with different colors in this easy fruitcake recipe to make the cake more festive.
Almonds - Roasted ones for more flavor and the contrast of texture. Other nuts work great like walnuts or pecans. Omit these for a nut-free version and use more candied fruits or raisins instead.
Liquor - This is optional and to your preference. It can be whiskey, brandy, or rum. For non-alcohol options, you can use orange juice or apple juice.
⭐ See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Step-By-Step Instructions
1. Soak the raisins - Soak the raisins in liquor or fruit juice the night before. This will make them plump and infuse them with flavor!
2. Prepare the fruit mixture - The next day, squeeze the liquid off the soaked raisins, reserving the liquid for later. Add the raisins into a bowl together with chopped candied fruits and almonds. In another bowl, sift all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder. Add 2-3 tablespoon of sifted flour mixture to the fruit mixture bowl. Mix and coat everything well with a spoon, and set aside.
3. Whisk wet ingredients - Cream butter and sugar in a bowl, using a handheld whisk. Add in the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition. Add in the reserved liquid from soaking the raisins, together with oil and orange zest. Whisk until everything is well combined.
4. Add in the dry ingredients - Add in the sifted flour mixture and mix everything, making sure to not over-mix. Finally, add the fruit mixture and fold everything well using a spatula.
5. Bake - Pour the batter into a greased and lined 9x5-inch (23x13 cm) loaf pan. Spread evenly. Bake in a preheated oven at 350ºF (175ºC), without the fan, on the lower ⅔ rack for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake loosely with aluminum foil if it browns too fast, making sure to do it only after 30 minutes of baking. Cool completely before slicing. Enjoy and we hope you'll love this easy fruitcake recipe as much as we do!
Recipe Expert Tips
- Soak the raisins the night before. This will make them soft and plump, and also infuse them with flavor.
- Cut the candied fruits and almonds to the same size. We love to cut them to more or less the same size as the raisins so that everything looks beautiful!
- Use vibrant-colored candied fruits. We love using different colored candied fruits in this easy fruitcake recipe. They will make the fruitcake look amazing with the contrasting colors when you slice it.
- Coat the fruit mixture in flour. It's the most important step in this easy fruitcake recipe! This will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake when you bake it. Don't skip this step!
How To Serve, Store, And Freeze
Serve - We love to enjoy it with something mild like hot tea or milk so that every bite of the fruitcake is more flavorful. It's perfect for Christmas, as well as our snowball cookies without nuts and our healthy Linzer cookies!
Store - Keep this fruitcake in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 5-7 days, the taste even improves as days go by! This is optional but when eating the balance the days after, we love to warm the sliced cake in the microwave for a few seconds and it tastes as if it just came out of the oven!
Freeze - Freeze the whole cake or sliced portions by wrapping it tightly with cling film and placing it in an air-tight container. It lasts up to 3 months in the freezer. Thaw the whole cake in the fridge, one day before, and bring it to room temperature 2 hours before slicing. For sliced portions, we simply thaw them at room temperature and warm them up in the microwave for a few seconds.
If you love more holiday recipes, our fluffy bakery-style gingerbread muffins are a must-try!
Recipe FAQs
Yes, the ones in this easy fruitcake recipe are our favorites but you can use other candied or dried fruits that you like. Just remember to soak the dried fruits the night before. No need to soak the candied fruits since they are already soft.
Of course! It won't have the same flavor but you can swap the liquor for fruit juice, orange juice would be my pick since it matches the cake flavor profile.
Any strong spirits are great like whisky, rum, brandy, or fruit liquor like orange, or cherry.
More Holidays Recipes
⭐ If you tried this Easy Family Fruitcake Recipe or any other recipe on our website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let us know how it went in the comments below!
Watch How To Make It
📖 Recipe
Easy Family Fruitcake Recipe
Video
Ingredients
Raisins
- ⅓ cup (50 g) raisins
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) liquor
Fruit Mixture
- 4 oz (110 g) candied fruits
- ⅓ cup (50 g) toasted almonds
Dry Ingredients
- 2 ⅔ cup (345 g) all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- ½ cup (113 g) butter , softened
- ¾ cup (150 g) sugar
- 3 large eggs , room temperature
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) oil
- zest of 2 oranges
Other
- powdered sugar , for dusting on top
Instructions
Raisins
- Soak the raisins in liqueur or fruit juice the night before. This will make them plump and infuse them with flavor!
Dry Ingredients
- In another bowl, sift all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
Fruit Mixture
- Squeeze the liquid off the soaked raisins, reserving the liquid for later. Add the raisins into a bowl together with chopped candied fruits and almonds.
- Add 2-3 tablespoon of sifted dry ingredients to the fruit mixture bowl. Mix and coat everything well with a spoon, and set aside.
Wet Ingredients
- Cream butter and sugar in a bowl, using a handheld whisk. Add in the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition.
- Add in the reserved liquid from soaking the raisins, together with oil and orange zest. Whisk until everything is well combined.
- Add in the sifted dry ingredients and mix everything, making sure to not over-mixing. Finally, add the fruit mixture and fold everything well using a spatula.
Bake
- Pour the batter into a greased and lined 9x5-inch (23x13 cm) loaf pan. Spread evenly. Bake in a preheated oven at 350ºF (175ºC), without the fan, on the lower ⅔ rack for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake loosely with aluminum foil if it browns too fast, making sure to do it only after 30 minutes of baking. Cool completely before slicing. Enjoy!
Notes
- Use the spoon and level method for cup measurements. This will prevent the use of excessive flour that'll make the fruitcake dense.
- A kitchen scale is a more precise tool in baking. We use it all the time to weigh dry ingredients like flour and sugar.
- Use a portable oven thermometer to get the accurate oven temperature.
- Cover the cake loosely with aluminum foil if the top browns too fast. Do it only after 30 minutes of baking to give time for the fruitcake to set and prevent it from shrinking.
Originally published on Nov 17, 2018. Updated with improved text and pictures on Dec 8, 2023.
Darshana Chandarana says
Hi I baked this cake over the weekend. It turned out good but I am not sure why the cake was slightly brown from inside instead of yellow like the pic. I added orange juice instead of orange liqueur.
Shehla Siddiqui says
If we don’t want to add liquor in there what’s a substitute?
Bea says
You can simply skip it or use orange juice. Hope it helps.
faye says
I made this with my mom and we absolutely loved it.. we decorated it exactly like you did it look so beautiful! thanks!
Bea says
Awesome Faye, I'm excited to hear that. Thank you so much for the love! 😉
Shehla Siddiqui says
I made it today . Made 2 mistake . Didn’t ready your reply and soak raisins in warm water and add water in egg batter . Second just place all the bits on the top instead of folding in batter . Just took out from oven no idea how does it make . But mistakes are made for learning 😊