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–+ servings

Candied Holiday Fruitcake

This light, golden, and buttery Candied Holiday Fruitcake filled with fruits and nuts is delicious from the first bite to the last.
A slice of candied holiday fruitcake on a plate with remaining cake in background.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours 30 minutes
Total Time 3 hours
Servings 15 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 cups chopped pecans
  • 16 ounces candied pineapple chopped
  • 8 ounces candied cherries halved
  • 4 ounces candied orange peel
  • 1 ¾ cups plus 3 tblsp. all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup butter room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • Powdered sugar optional

Instructions

  • Position rack in lowest third of oven and preheat to 250°.
  • Grease and flour a bundt or tube pan and set aside.
  • In a large bowl, mix pecans and fruit with 3 tblsp of flour.
  • In another large bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in vanilla extract.
  • Sift 1 ¾ cups flour with baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to batter and stir until blended. Mix fruit and nuts into batter.
  • Put batter into prepared pan. Bake until golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 2 ½ hours.
  • Cool in pan on rack for 15 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar.

Notes

Ingredients:
  • You may notice that there is no candied citron in this recipe. That's one of the reasons why it has a lighter taste than dark fruitcakes where citron plays a major role. There are two major suppliers of candied fruits in the U.S. - Sunripe and Paradise - and both have excellent products.
  • In my opinion, pecans are essential to this cake. I couldn't recommend substituting with anything else.
Tips:
  • Mixing the fruit and nuts with flour helps them stay suspended in the batter. Otherwise, they all sink to the bottom of the cake while baking.
  • When mixing the batter, it becomes quite heavy weightwise. It gets pretty hard to turn it all around and mix it well, but just keep pulling the wet batter up from the bottom of your bowl and mixing until everything is well combined.
  • It's really common for people to douse fruitcakes (especially the dark ones) with rum or bourbon and let them sit for weeks to really mellow. However, my opinion is that this particular recipe is better without any added liquor.
  • To keep the fruitcake nice and moist, be sure to store it in an airtight container and only open the container when you're cutting and serving the cake. Mine usually stays moist for at least a week.
Storage:
  • Store: Cool the fruitcake completely. Store in a plastic cake container at room temperature. Keeps for about 10 days.
  • Freeze: Wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. Freeze for up to three months.

Nutrition

Serving: 1 | Calories: 559kcal | Carbohydrates: 71g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 30g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 87mg | Sodium: 153mg | Potassium: 133mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 51g | Vitamin A: 470IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 54mg | Iron: 2mg