Caribbean Black Fruitcake Recipe
Email
Also known as wedding cake, Christmas cake, and bolo pretu, among other monikers, this cake has roots throughout the Caribbean and is usually reserved for the celebratory events it’s named for. Not unlike the more common dark fruitcakes, it’s packed with dried fruits, nuts, and warm spices, but the molasses found in stateside cakes is swapped for burnt sugar (see “What to buy”), resulting in a slightly bitter yet rich, chocolaty flavor. This cake has endless ingredient variations, but one is universal—rum, and lots of it!
What to buy: Burnt sugar syrup is the crucial ingredient, giving this cake its deep black color and unique flavor, which cannot successfully be mimicked by dark corn syrup or molasses, not even blackstrap. Although burnt sugar can be made at home, the process can be imprecise. We like Blue Mountain Country for its moderate sweetness and chocolate notes.
Use our recipe for Candied Grapefruit Zest and swap out the grapefruit peel for orange. A homemade candied citrus yields the best results, but if you’d rather purchase some, use a high-quality candied zest, which usually appears in the fall at gourmet or specialty stores. Don’t even think about... read more
For the fruit:
- 1 3/4 cups whole raw almonds, coarsely chopped
- 1 3/4 cups dried cherries, coarsely chopped
- 1 3/4 cups prunes, coarsely chopped
- 1 1/2 cups dark rum, such as Myers’s, plus 4 tablespoons for brushing
- 1 1/2 cups raisins, coarsely chopped
- 1 1/2 cups ruby port
- 1 1/4 cups currants
- 3/4 cup candied orange peel, coarsely chopped
For the cake:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground clove
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
- 6 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup burnt sugar syrup
- Combine all ingredients in a 3-quart container with a tightfitting lid and mix well. Cover tightly and store in a dark, cool, dry place for 1 week.
For the cake:
- Heat the oven to 300°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Coat two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans with butter; set aside.
- Combine flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg in a large bowl and whisk to aerate and break up any lumps. Set aside.
- Place butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, and beat on medium speed until pale yellow, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and return the mixer to medium speed. Add eggs one at a time, letting each mix in fully before adding the next. Add vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and return the mixer to low speed.
- Add flour mixture, macerated fruit and nuts along with any unabsorbed liquid, and burnt sugar, and mix until just combined. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans (the pans will be completely full).
- Bake until a cake tester comes out clean (the cake centers will be very moist), about 2 hours.
- Let cool 30 minutes in the pans on a wire rack. Turn cakes out onto the rack, and brush each with 2 tablespoons dark rum. Cool completely before slicing and eating, or aging.
- To age, store each cooled cake in a resealable plastic bag at room temperature for up to 2 months. A dark cupboard or pantry is ideal, but do not refrigerate, as the moisture level will change the texture.
If you are aging your cake , soak cheescloth in your alcohol choice, rum is good, wrap, and store in a cookie or cake tin a month or two, the true British Xmas cake is made before Advent, so the aging is done in time for Xmas!!!Enjoy
Very good! Aged mine for one month and everyone loved it!
I just made this and the cake is really good. There are a few things I would change, though:
-- Don't fill the cakes up to the top of the pans, the batter overflows and makes a huge mess in the oven and the cakes end up looking pretty crappy around the edges. It would be better to make three cakes.
-- Putting the cakes in plastic bags to age is not a good idea. After brushing the rum on the cakes and wrapping them in plastic, they begin to degrade and get mushy. Wrapping them in cheesecloth (like recipes normally recommend) and aluminum foil would be much better.
-- As Lemons said, the cake takes more than two hours to cook.
But, if you like intense fruitcake, this is a really good one.
I made the cake, although I did a few subs - the orange rind from the store was awful, so I used dried pineapple, for one. I used Barbancourt rum, and subbed a little Madeira for an equivalent amount of the port. I'd done the recipe from Laurie Colwin's "Home Cooking" some years ago, and was way disappointed in that one. But this was delightful. I marinated the fruit 10 days, and baked the batter in 2 loaf pans that I had lined with thick brown paper (sprayed with Pam), following Nigella Lawson's suggestions, including making sure the paper went above the side of the pan, and I was glad I did; it rose above the rim of the pan. It definitely took longer than 2 hours, maybe 2 h 20 minutes.
I kept the two cakes, brushed with rum every few days, in separate plastic bags, for about a week before we cut the first one.
Very moist, very tasty (swell beater-licking, the cake dough being quite subtle), very dark. Not for the kiddies, at least those we were around. I will definitely make this again. I'd chop those almonds more finely, I think, for ease in slicing. I've seen some recipes that pretty much want the fruit all ground up or processed, but I really don't think that's necessary.
Not a difficult cake, just time-consuming. And worth it.
i dont have any port - can i replace it with orange juice?
I mean "raisins" in the above post. No edit function. Anyway, good recipe.
All right, I took the plunge, and here's my report.
I followed the recipe pretty closely except I didn't chop the fruit and nuts all that finely. Chopping raising finely? It seemed too time-consuming. I left the fruit to macerate in the booze a little longer than a week, then made the cakes. I had some mini-sized paper loaf pans so I decided to make several of those instead of two regular loaves. It came to seven small loaves. I reduced the baking time. The cakes have been sitting around for about two weeks now. My plan was to try one before giving any out as gifts. Last night a friend of my daughter's came over with her mother, who is from Belize. It seemed like a good time to break out the fruitcake. Thumbs up! I thought the cake was excellent and so did the Belize-born Carol. It looked exactly like the photo with the recipe. I think I will douse the remaining cakes with a little more rum before I serve them or give them away.
@NYCkaren--thanks for the information on the burnt sugar. This cake is definitely on my "Must Try" list!
this cake is truly delicious--add cherry brandy too--like they do in Trinidad and Tobago.
i live in india, and i dont know where to get the burnt sugar...any other alternative?
I am excited to try this recipe along with a family recipe and see how they turn out. Is anyone else doing a comparison?
Melodie, you can buy burnt sugar at West Indian markets or you can make it yourself. It involves cooking sugar somewhere past the caramel stage. I bought a jar last week so I'm ready to go.
Wondering what burnt sugar is? Does this just mean sugar taken to a dark caramel? Thanks!
This looks like a fairly simple version of black cake. Some other recipes I've seen have lots of ingredients I don't have. I think I'll try this this year. Has anyone made it yet?
There is nothing else like a chunk of Rum Cake in Grenada on Christmas day with some Homemade Ginger beer!
Traditionally, in the carribean,housewives will let the fruit Macerate in Rum(or a 'Port-Style' Red Wine) for 6months to a year! Yes I mean it!
And after the cake is made, it is kept moist and fresh by pouring a little bit of rum or Wine over it(optional)
Kudo's to you guys for helping me revisit an aspect of my Carribean upbringing.