Boiled Fruit Cake – Cooking with Nana Ling

A Boiled Fruit Cake ticks so many boxes. It’s rich, delicious and everything else you’d expect from a fruit cake. It’s also a fuss-free type of fruit cake. If you’ve never made a fruit cake before or have limited time to make one, I definitely recommend starting here.

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Why this one’s a winner

I love a boiled fruit cake – the boiling process softens and plumps the fruit and turbo-charges the development and melding of the deep and complex flavours that characterise a great fruit cake.

(The boiling process also works well when it comes to Chocolate Cake.)

I’ve tried several recipes and come up with my own version of the best boiled fruit cake. In particular, I’ve taken the spices from my Nan’s handwritten recipe, the richness of the Women’s Weekly Favourite Boiled Fruit Cake recipe and the simplicity of yet another recipe I found in a community cookbook. The best of these recipes has helped me create a recipe that exceeded my expectations.

It’s also relatively straightforward to make and incredibly versatile. When testing, I cut cake within hours of it cooling and the flavours were already amazing. It’s also a cake you can store for months in the right conditions.

(Want more winning fruit cake recipes? I also highly rate the Classic Christmas Cake, Floral Fruit Cake and Boiled Pineapple Fruit Cake.)

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Ingredient notes

To make this recipe up, you’ll need to gather these ingredients:

• butter (salted)
• brandy (TIP: you could also use cognac, rum, whisky, fruit juice or the like)
• brown sugar
• mixed dried fruit (no need to measure out different fruits!)
• eggs
• plain and SR flour
• bicarb soda
• allspice and nutmeg
• salt.

See recipe card at the end of the post for ingredient quantities.

How to make Boiled Fruit Cake

Plan out your cake-making time by noting these four stages of the process:

• Boiling some of the ingredients
• Allowing the mixture to cool
• Adding the rest of the ingredients
• Baking the cake.

Boiling

Start by adding the butter, brandy, water, brown sugar and mixed fruit in a large saucepan (see image 1). Stir over low heat until butter has melted and ingredients are well combined. Bring mixture to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes (see image 2).

Cooling

Once the mixture is off the heat, allow to cool to room temperature (see image 3).

While the mixture is cooling, you can start prepping for the baking. Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees celsius / 340 degrees fahrenheit, fan-forced. Grease a round cake tin (19-20cm diameter) and line with 2 layers of baking paper.

Combining

Once the mixture has cooled to room temperature, add the eggs to the mixture (see image 4) and stir to combine.

Sift the remaining dry ingredients into the mixture (see image 5). Stir until combined (see image 6).

TIP: Don’t over-stir the mixture – just stir until the ingredients are combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin (see image 7).

Baking

Bake for 1 ½ hours or until the cake is a dark, golden colour and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

When you remove the cake from the oven, you can use a pastry brush to coat the top of the cake with a 2-3 tablespoons of brandy “(feeding the cake”). Then, add a layer of foil to the top of the cake and wrap the entire cake (tin and all) in a clean tea towel (see image 8).

Once the cake is completely cool, or after a few days, remove the cake from the tin. Feed the cake with brandy again at this point if you’re so inclined (it’ll help with softness and richness of flavour).

Storage

Wrap the cooled cake in foil and then in a clean tea towel and store in a cool, dry place for up to a few months. You can check on the cake and keep feeding it every couple of weeks.

This cake will freeze, wrapped well, for up to 6 months.

More classic cakes

Sink your teeth into more cake-y goodness with these favourites from the Cooking with Nana Ling cake recipe collection:

Made this recipe and love it? Please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. (And it really makes my day to hear how Nana Ling’s recipes are being made, shared and loved all around the world! – Libby x)

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