Fruit Cake for the 2010s

Poor Fruit Cake!  Forever the butt of Christmas jokes, the scapegoat of the holiday season, and the gift that keeps re-giving.  Well I'd like to help it out a bit and present to you, the New and Improved Fruit Cake, one that you will NOT want to give away.  Found this recipe in a my Sweet & Natural Baking book.  No unnaturally colored dried fruit, no refined sugars, and no way you can resist it.

Fruit Cake

1 cup of pineapple chunks (canned, drained)
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen cranberries
1 cup dried currants
½ cup chopped pecans
1-2/3 cup fruit juice reduction (see recipe below)
1 cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp allspice

6 mini loaf pans or 2 regular loaf pans

Fruit Juice Reduction

For this recipe, you’ll need 2 (12 oz) containers of frozen white grape or apple juice concentrate. Thaw and place in a deep saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil until concentrate is reduced to 1 cup (8 oz). Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.

Speaking from experience, do not boil over high heat! Unless you enjoy the smell of burnt concentrate, you want to start it and keep it at medium high heat. Bring it to a gentle boil. After about 5-7 minutes I poured it into a glass measuring cup to check and see how close I was to 8 oz. If you’re not quite there, just pour it back into the saucepan for another minute or two.


Preheat oven to 350° then lightly grease and flour the loaf pans.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the pineapple, cranberries, currants, and pecans. Set aside ¾ cup of the mix.

In another bowl, whisk the fruit juice reduction, buttermilk and eggs until well combined.

Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and allspice.

Add the wet ingredients to the mix and whisk until smooth.

The batter will resemble pancake batter, full of perky bubbles.

Fold in the fruit-pecan mixture (but not the ¾ cup you set aside!).

Divide the batter between the loaf pans, smoothing the tops, then sprinkle the reserved fruit-nut mix on top of each.

Place the pans on a baking sheet. Bake 40-45 minutes (if using small pans, 50-55 minutes if using big pans) until the loaf top springs back to the touch.

Cool loaves on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then run a knife around the inside of the pans to loosen the cakes and cool completely.

If properly wrapped, you can keep the cakes at room temperature for up to 3 days.

NOTES

If you can't find dried currants, you can substitute raisins, golden raisins, or chopped dried cherries.

I didn't want to buy a whole quart of buttermilk, so instead I used powdered cultured buttermilk.  You can find it in your baking section and the whole container makes up to 3 3/4 qts.  Just keep it in the fridge between uses.