Easy Rich Fruit Cake Recipe With Apples

5 from 4 votes

Easy Rich Fruit Cake Recipe With Apples

An easy rich fruit cake recipe that's beautifully moist using apples and mixed fruit. It's boiled with brandy first. And once baked, feed regularly with more brandy to mature, leading up to Christmas. And it can be made months in advance!

Prep Time30

Cook Time2 25

Total Time2 55

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: british

Keyword: apple, boiled, christmas, christmas cake, fruit cake, mixed fruit

Servings: slices

Calories: 455kcal

Author: Vikkie Lee

Equipment

Ingredients

200 g unsalted butter
200 g dark muscovado sugar
500 g apples frozen, then thawed, diced and juice squeezed out by hand, becoming 300g *see notes below
100 ml brandy Plus extra for feeding
60 ml brandy *for feeding at the end while it cools down
1 orange zest and juice (approx 150ml)
1 lemon zest
3 large eggs lightly whisked
100 g currants
100 g candied peel
50 g dates pitted and chopped
1 tablespoon black treacle
90 g almond slices
50 g ground almonds
200 g plain flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
2.5 teaspoon ground mixed spice

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

In a large pan, add the butter, diced apples, dried fruit. peel, sugar, juice and 100ml brandy and slowly bring to the boil, meanwhile stirring until the butter has melted. Simmer for 10 minutes until it has reduced down.
Turn off the hob and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes.
While waiting, preheat the oven on gas mark 2 or 130c fan and line your cake tin or tins. Please make sure you line your cake tin by following my video tutorial here to ensure you don't burn your hard efforts.
Once cooled, gently stir in your eggs, ground and sliced almonds and follow with the flour, baking powder and spices until all the flour is combined.
Spoon into your cake tin and smooth over with the back of a spoon.
Place in the middle of the oven with a vented piece of baking paper on top and bake for 45 minutes. Then lower the heat to gas mark 1 or 120c fan and continue to cook for another 1 hr to 1 hours 30 until it is firm to touch and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
Take the cakes out of the oven and prick in several places with your skewer and spoon over the 60ml brandy and leave to cool.
Then remove all the pack from the tin(s) and double wrap in baking paper then again with tin foil and store in an airtight container.

Video

Notes

What Apples Can I Use?

In this recipe, I used 500g frozen, then thawed Braeburn eating apples. But, you can use any apples you want. However, as this apple cake involves boiling apples with other fruit, it's important to freeze them first.

This makes it the perfect Christmas cake for anyone who has a freezer full of apples and hates waste. And you'll find the cake has delicious toffee apple nuggets with each bite.

Also, for anyone prepping 10kg of apples, you'll know that peeling is a daunting task. And that's why this recipe uses unpeeled but cored and diced apples.

If You Don't Have Apples

If you don't have apples, you could instead just use a mix of 750g dried fruit of your choice. Such as cherries, dates, raisins, sultanas, currants, mixed peel, etc.

Buying whole bags of dried fruit can get expensive if only baking one cake. So often, I just use what I have left from previous cakes.

Why Use Frozen Apples and Not Fresh?

Freezing chopped apples completely changes the texture, making them ideal for baking with. However, less so for eating them raw again.

It removes a lot of the apple juice when thawed and drained, reducing the weight to approx 300g. Note, I drained the juice away for quicker simmering times, but I'm sure you could defrost all cook it all together with a few more minutes.

But, the apples become spongy, making them great for simmering with other dried fruit. They won't disintegrate while simmering, unlike raw apples.

Nutrition