How to make the perfect fruitcake

If you ever tried to make a fruitcake from scratch, you know it's a long, labor intensive, and expensive process. A high quality fruitcake, which typically contains at least 50% fruits and nuts can cost considerably more than purchasing a high quality fruitcake. Add in the cost of the other ingredients and your time to mix ingredients, bake, cleanup, and allowing the cake to set, and you will quickly realize that making a high quality homemade fruitcake is truly a labor of love!

Don't Overbake!

For those who are courageous enough to take on the task of baking your own fruitcake, there is a problem that even seasoned fruitcake baking veterans have encountered at one time or another; the dreaded overbaking of the cake! Imagine investing all of the time and money into the ingredients and dedicating a full day of the weekend to making your fruitcake, only to end up burning it or drying it out and throwing it all away! This happens all to often, as we have heard from many of our customers who decided to purchase a cake after igniting their own!

Tips to avoid a dry cake: 

Another issue many bakers encounter: the dried out fruitcake. To avoid drying out your fruitcake and making one of those fruitcake doorstops, make sure you soak your fruits until they are plump and juicy. Using fruits that are too dry will turn your expensive pieces of soft decadent fruit into petrified tooth cracking and filling extracting terrors! The best bet is to make a mixture of light syrup and sugar and allow your fruits to soak for about 24 hours before draining and using for the cake. 

 Mix, Mix, Mix!!

A properly mixed fruitcake batter will use commercial mixers to make sure all of those ingredients are well distributed throughout the cake, so you'll be sure to get a good sampling of what's inside in every bite. Proper mixing and density of the fruitcake batter will also ensure that there is no settling of the ingredients to the bottom of the cake prior to or during baking, so when you cut your slice of fruitcake you will see a nice even distribution of ingredients through it.

 Make sure you allow enough time for your fruitcake to set!

Unlike most cakes that taste better when consumed almost immediately after they are baked, a fruitcake needs time to "cure" or "set". Curing your fruitcake allows all of the flavors to comingle together. In fact, it is quite common for the same fruitcake to take on different flavor profiles if tasted at different times. Much like a fine red wine that matures and ages to get its flavor, fruitcakes become more flavorful with time. Tannins, which are compounds found in fruit skin increase the flavor complexity of fruitcake as time passes. The longer these tannins are allowed to age in your fruitcake, the more complex flavor the fruitcake has. Most people allow their fruitcakes to set for a least a 2 weeks prior to eating, so be sure to give yourself enough time before your holiday!

 If all of this work seems too daunting, Buy a Jane Parker instead! 

Of course, if all of these steps above just seem like too much work, or if you just don't have the time, you can always do what millions of other fruitcake lovers do; buy a high quality fruitcake, like Jane Parker!

What to look for when buying a high quality fruitcake: 

If you are like most of the fruitcake loving world, you like lots of fruits and nuts both inside and on top of your fruitcake. Most people enjoy getting a hearty assortment of all of the flavors in every bite, so you'll want a cake that is made of at least 50% fruits and nuts. 

Common fruitcake ingredients to look for include raisins, cherries, pineapple, dates, figs, almonds, pecans, and walnuts. Jane Parker fruitcakes are 2/3 fruit and nuts, and you can tell when you cut into our cakes.

In fact, when you slice a Jane Parker Fruitcake this is what you'll see:

Jane Parker fruitcakes are made with raisins, cherries, pineapple, and pecans. Our cakes are baked with over 2/3 fruits and nuts, and we hand place our cherries and choice pecans on top of our cakes. When you take a bite of Jane Parker fruitcake, you will have an explosion of delicious flavors to satisfy all of your fruitcake desires!

The best part of buying a Jane Parker fruitcake? We do all of the work for you!

We bake our fruitcakes year round in small batches, so our cakes are available all year. What's better, we ship our cakes right to your door for free! Jane Parker fruitcakes come in a variety of flavors and styles, so you can be sure we have the right size and flavor for any occasion.

Check out our 5 pound Jane Parker 5 Pound Fruitcake below!

 Want to see how Jane Parker fruitcakes are made, click below!  

Until next time fruitcake lovers!