For most, it’s the least favorite gift of the holidays. Then there’s the crowd that has found it a fun tradition to keep passing around the same fruit cake year after year as a running joke. All in all, this is one holiday treat that has mixed results depending on how its made. 

Recently, I found a youtube channel called Tasting History with Max Miller and he shared a recipe for fruit cake from the 1860s. If you wish to try it as well, you can find it here. I’ll be making a few changes to mine as I am on a gluten-free restriction and he didn’t show any adjustments for it.

Here are the changes I made. I substituted King Arthur’s gluten free 1:1 blend, date syrup instead of molasses, as well as added dried cherries and orange peel with the citron and raisins. Personally, it feels like the date syrup gave it a richer flavor that paired well with the fruit. 

Typically, I don’t read further than the ingredient list when I get a new recipe and figure out the instructions as I go, but this time I decided to read through and I’m glad I did. The video also helped things. Everything went smoothly and that is odd for me, usually something goes wrong. Well, one thing did. I randomly selected the different fruits and forgot to pay attention to the amount I had. Turns out I had grabbed less than what I needed. 

After all the batter was mixed up and the fruit stirred in, I put the batter into a pan that made 18 mini loaves. The original recipe called for it to be baked for almost 2 hours, so I figured I was in for a long wait. It only took 35 minutes. I let the sit for a few minutes before moving them to the cooling rack, where this is the step to brush with the selected alcohol. I didn’t do this step because I was going to be sharing with kids and adults alike, so better safe than sorry.

Time for the tasting! It was still slightly warm when I cut into the little loaf and shared it with my dad and husband. Usually, they’re not a fan of the gluten-free taste in foods, but turns out I did well and it was a hit. They both went back for seconds. 

Now with my army of mini loaves, I left 4 at my parents and took the rest home. In going to try aging them to see if the taste improves as the recipes suggests it might. I will update when another loaf is cut into on Christmas.

Thanks for joining my little recipe experiments, I’ll be trying more in the future too. Until then, safe exploring everyone!