Chileans eat a lot of American and European foods around Christmas. Our traditions have been heavily affected by movies and books. One thing that we love with passion is our fruitcake, called Easter cake (I know it sounds crazy, but we call it “Pascua” (Easter). It has lots of Christmas staples. Santa is “el Viejo Pascuero” or Easter Old man… very confusing).
This fruitcake is genius: a perfect marriage of my old family recipe with Dulce de leche as the secret ingredient and chocolate in this version. It’s fantastic. You are going to love it.
You can freeze the Chocolate Fruit Cake for up to 3 months.
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Chocolate Fruit Cake
A delicious Christmas treat.
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 4 cakes of 1 Kg each
Ingredients
Units
- 250 grams of raisins
- 250 grams of walnuts
- 250 grams of almonds
- 250 grams of roasted unsalted peanuts
- 500 grams of candied fruit: apricots, figs, pineapple, ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon,
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- zest of 1 lemon
- 3 tablespoons rum
- 500g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 325 grams of semisweet chocolate chopped
- 500 grams of powdered sugar
- 6 eggs at room temperature
- 175 grams of Dulce de Leche, I used La Lechera
- 950 grams of all-purpose flour
- 50 grams or 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- The night before, soak the raisins, walnuts, peanuts, almonds and candied fruit, and lemon zest with the rum and spices. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand overnight.
- The next day, preheat the oven to 150C or 300F.
- Butter 4 7” round cake pans.
- Melt the chopped semisweet chocolate in a double boiler with 100 grams of butter. Stir occasionally. Remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes while continuing with the recipe.
- Beat 400 grams of butter and sugar with the stand mixer until creamy and pale, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each egg.
- Add the Dulce de Leche and beat until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add the melted chocolate. Beat until blended.
- Add the flour with the baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt while mixing on low speed until well blended, about 3 minutes.
- Finally, add the soaked fruits, and mix well by hand.
- Pour into the pans.
- Bake for about 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours or until golden. The internal temperature should be around 100C or 200F.
- Let stand 25 minutes in the pan and unmold. Let cool completely before cutting.
- Storage in plastic bags.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Chilean
Wow, only you could make fruitcake look good. I get the feeling that isn’t the kind of cake one just tries to re-gift…
oh no, this is good… thanks!