Tropical Fruit Cake Recipe with Citrus and Ginger

Fruit Cake

Hmmm, Guys, it’s not as if I was not perfectly aware of its sad life: It just looks like everybody makes it and gives it away, but nobody ever eats it. What’s in a name, that is the perennial question. No wonder the name invites snickers and chuckles.

Why does it get a bad rap?

It always seems to contain a list of ingredients a mile long, especially all those diced fruit in artificial syrup that look garish and taste rather objectionable. Needless to add, As a result, it is heavy as a brick, and is cloyingly sweet. And this is likely why it travels in endless loops until some charitable recipient at the end of the recycling chain finally puts it, virtually untouched, out of its misery.

No More Dissing Fruit Cake!

I was determined to change fruit cake’s destiny: So I lightened it up and gave it a decidedly tropical twist. Shorter ingredient list. None of that tutti frutti nonsense. Orange and lemon, skin and all. Dark rum, golden raisins, banana. Yes! That’s more like it! It is amazingly spicy and tangy. Citrus zest and peel do wonders for it, and the ginger is delightful (hey have you ever tried my amazing triple ginger cookies?) Also, the banana knows its place here, and  doesn’t upstage these bright flavors and fragrances. When you unwrap it and slice it, it will be like opening a bottle of perfume, this is how giddy it will make you.

Sometimes I take my playing with food a drop further than even I myself dare. Like with this  fruit cake, is a good example. I tinkered and tinkered, and sure enough the reward is delicious. Thank you family and friends for always being my willing guinea pigs! They all work for food. I subject them to constantly evolving batches, yeah, right, poor guys.  And if a batch was just way too wacky, I just ask them to please forget they ever tasted it.

Cooking with Fruit

We Sephardis love to cook with fruit, and not just for dessert! Just Take a look at this fabulous Tu Bishvat Menu I did at a recent Cooking Demonstration!

This Fruit Cake is for Keeps!

That was the unanimous verdict on the last try.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup preserved ginger (health food stores), packed
• 1 large navel orange, quartered, skin and all, seeded
• 1 lemon, quartered, skin and all, seeded
• 1 cup oil
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups all purpose, whole wheat pastry, or spelt flour
• 1 cup all fashioned oats
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup pineapple juice (or 1 cup canned unsweetened crushed pineapple, juice and all)
• 1 ripe banana, diced small
• 1 cup golden raisins

Instructions