Fruit cake recipe

Ciambella con frutta secca
This fruit cake recipe is made mainly with dried fruit as a nice and easy way of getting over a seasonal fruit vacuum.

After Christmas and New Year I always end up with cupboards and drawers full of cocktail berries, succade, raisins, sultanas and other kinds of dried and candied fruits. What doesn’t get eaten ends up in a cake prepared according to the equal measures principle frequently used for Italian breakfast cakes.

Ingredients
250 g butter
4 eggs
250 g (3 dl) sugar
250 g (4 dl) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
50 ml Marsala or San Marzano rum (optional)
200 g mixed dried fruits

Preparation
Soak raisins and sultanas in liquor (or tea if you will)
Beat butter, sugar  and vanilla sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add one egg at a time.
Mix well with flour and baking powder.
Fold dried and candied fruits and liquor into the mixture (but shake off excess tea).
Put the mixture in a greased ring cake tin and bake it at 150 C (300 F) for 1 hour.
The cake gets better if left to rest for a day or two.

Other fruit  cake recipes 

Italian apple cake

Bustrengo – Polenta and apple cake

Poppy seed lemon cake

Italian carrot cake

Pangiallo – A Christmas cake from Rome