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French Fruitcake

Welcome back! 
Today, we have a recipe for fruitcake! Yes, it's a fruitcake, but it's not the classic American kind with the strangely colored fruits; this is actually what a fruitcake should be like - completely natural-looking, full of fruit, and delicious. If you're one of those fruitcake-haters (which is reasonable considering how weird they are), this recipe is certain to change your mind about the dessert!

French Fruitcake

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 10 grams honey
  • 2 eggs
  • 120 grams cake flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 200 grams mixed dried fruit (raisins, prunes, black currants, peach, apricot, cherry, etc.)
  • 1/4 cup rum (or brandy/Grand Marnier)

Directions:

  1. The day before, prepare your dried fruits by cutting the bigger pieces into even chunks and then soaking them in rum.
  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until it is fluffy and pale.
  3. Add in the honey and mix it in.
  4. Add in the eggs, one at a time, and mix evenly.
  5. Sift the cake flour and baking powder into the batter and mix.

  6. Add in the mixed dried fruits and the rum and mix evenly.
  7. Pour the batter into a loaf tin.

  8. Bake at 325°F for 40 minutes.

What's great about this dessert is that you can really use any mix of dried fruits that you have - we tend to always have a pretty wide assortment of dried fruit so we were able to fill this dish with all sorts of fun stuff! Traditional American fruitcakes also have a variety of spices, in particular cinnamon and nutmeg, that give it the Christmas vibe. It's not especially necessary because of the innate flavor of the fruit, but if you're going for that all-out holiday feast, you can add that in too!

-Chefpo

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