Aunt Ted's Light Christmas Fruit Cake
 
 
Author:
Ingredients
  • 375 ml Sultana raisins (just over 1 1/2 cups)
  • 1 lb mixed peel (two 225 g glace fruit mix with peel, multi colored)
  • 1 16 oz jar (or two 250 ml jars) maraschino cherries, well drained, use whole cherries, do not chop
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups butter
  • 1 1/2 cups fine (berry) sugar
  • 6 eggs, beat in one at a time
  • 1/2 cup carnation milk
  • 1 tsp lemon extract
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 250F
  2. Line bottom and all sides of two longer, narrow loaf pans (13' x 4" x 4") with brown paper (I used thin brown parchment paper). Grease bottom and all sides of the paper well.
  3. (Raisins Note: I skipped this step as my raisins were newly bought and plump) If needed, pour boiling water over Sultana raisins, let stand for a few minutes then drain well. Spread on a cookie sheet and dry out in a slow oven (100F) or dry between two tea towels.
  4. When the raisins are thoroughly dried, mix all fruit together in a large glass bowl and sift 1/2 cup all purpose flour over, mixing well to coat. Set aside.
  5. Mix the batter in an electric mix master in the order given, from the butter through to the vanilla extract, mixing well between additions. Ensure the eggs are added one at a time.
  6. Then measure 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt to a sifter. Sift into the wet ingredients.
  7. Mix at a low speed to blend all of the batter ingredients together.
  8. Spoon the batter into the bowl of dried fruit and gently mix together by hand with a large wooden spoon. I used just repeatedly pressed the spoon down gently into the batter to gently mix so as to not break up the large maraschino cherries.
  9. Scoop mixture into the two prepared pans 3/4" from the top. Set in the oven.
  10. Set a loaf pan filled with water in between the two loaf pans. This will keep the cakes moist.
  11. Bake for 2 hours at 250F.
  12. Increase the heat to 275F and bake for 45 minutes more. Any different sized pans (angel food, large round cake pan) may require a total of 1 1/4 hours of baking at this higher temperature. Just test after 45 minutes by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. The top will be lightly browned when done. If not, pop back in for the additional 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the cakes and test them often.
  13. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a while. Lift the loaves out using the parchment paper sides. You'll see that the parchment paper soaked up a lot of the "grease" from the loaves, this is why it is necessary to line the pans.
  14. If you wish to freeze some pieces of the loaves, do not slice, just wrap a section of the loaf in foil. Foil keeps the moisture in the loaf. Then put the sections in a large ziploc bag and freeze.
Recipe by Just a Smidgen at https://justasmidgen.com/2025/12/15/aunt-teds-light-christmas-fruit-cake/