Fruitcakes, whether homemade or purchased, vary in their recipes as much as any dessert dish which exists. Whether the no-bake Icebox Fruit Cake, which contains no flour, only finely ground nuts and a variety of preserved fruits, or something more elaborate which is usually baked in a Bundt or ring type cake pan to allow thorough and even cooking throughout, there is a rum fruit cake to fit almost anyone’s taste buds.
Traditional Rum Fruit Cake
The fruits and nuts used in the fruitcakes are a matter of taste, tradition, and availability, and usually, result in only a minor change in flavor since the same methods of preserving and candying fruits are used almost everywhere now.
However, a big change can be obtained by swapping one of the ingredients for another one, alcohol.
Alcohol: The Special Ingredient
Likely the favorite alcohol used in fruit cakes, and one that pairs well with the candied Caribbean fruits, is the spirit which made the Caribbean famous, rum.
Rum fruit cake can be made with either light, golden, or dark rum with the darker type usually carrying more hints of the molasses from which it is made. Often, the rum fruit cake itself may have molasses used as a sweetener which is then accentuated whether the rum is added during the mixing and cooking process, by covering the cooked cake with a cloth soaked in rum, or by pouring a slight amount of rum around the top of the cake itself. Some manufacturers and recipes soak the cooked cakes directly in the rum, but the best flavors come from those which use a combination of alcohols baked right in the cake.
When making a rum fruit cake, it is typical to use all of the methods above, with the candied fruits being soaked in rum between two weeks and three months before the cake is cooked.
