I want to know if you can ripen your fruit cake out of the fridge and for how long? Someone told me, mold is sometimes a problem, is that true even with brandy, or rum? Please help.

Hi Peppercorns, I make a very dense fruit cake all the time as we love it.  I presume by ripen you mean to let the flavor develop.  I soak my fruit in alcohol anywhere from overnight to up to 2 weeks before baking the cake and then brush with alcohol when it comes out of the oven.  I then cover it with foil and tip it upside down on the bench at least overnight.  The weight of the cake will generally self level it.  I generally ice it within a few days but if I can't I will wrap it in foil until I am ready to.  Once it is iced it sits on the table for me to look at for at least a month before I will cut it as I think for all the work I put in I want to enjoy it (I am a hobby decorator).  I never refrigerate them.  My mother is even worse.  She will not cut any cake I send her for at least 2 months and has been known to let them sit for up to 4 months, till I crack it with her, as she reckons the flavor gets better the longer you let them sit.  The icing makes the inside airtight and we have never had a problem with the recipe that I use.  Otherwise you can let them sit, wrapped in foil, in an airtight container, or likewise covered in icing in an airtight container.  Please note that we don't like fondant so it doesn't matter if it gets a bit dusty as we pull it all off and throw it away.

BE WARNED  Do not make a boiled fruitcake and expect it to last.  I would not even cover one of these with icing as they are known to go mouldy.  They are designed for eating straight away.

Do you mean 'rich fruit cake' - along the lines of this recipe?

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/the-classic-christmas-cake.html

If so, I make these frequently and have never, ever put them in the fridge.  And I've never heard of anyone else doing that, either. 

Once baked and completely cool, I wrap in baking parchment, then wrap in foil (baking parchment prevents any reaction with the foil) and just leave! 
 

There's no need to put in an air-tight box (in fact, it's better not to, as the cake needs to 'breath'.  It's more likely to sweat and then eventually go moulding if it's in an air-tight box).

HTH

Suzanne x

Oh wow, thank you all, to me ripen means to allow cake to develop more flavor with either rum or brandy, oh, I am so scared of molds growing that after 10 days, I put them in the ref. I brought a 10 inch fruit cake  with me overseas for Christmas, it got banged a little in the luggage, and there were no molds, so I'm happy  for that, we refrigerated it right away though. I love fruit cakes more than anything else and so I bake  a few to make sure I don't run out, all you need is a sliver with a cup of coffee.  Do you wrap your fruit cakes in marzipan, the cover with either RI or fondant? 

Yes, I marzipan mine.

Unfortunately, I don't royal ice, but it's something I want to learn!!

And, yes, a sliver is all you need! :D
 

I've made Jamaican style fruitcake for Christmas which is very dense, it's fruit and nuts soaked in rum and cherry wine for 4 months, ground up and then baked with just enough batter to hold it together. Once baked I pour about a cup of rum over each layer while still in the pan. Next day I take it out, cover each layer in cheesecloth, cover that with parchment and place it it a cake tin with a sturdy lid. Then I spray with rum just until moist every day for about two weeks. I then place the cakes in the wine fridge for about two months with foil over the parchment. About a week before Christmas I take the cakes out of the fridge, soak each layer in rum again, and spray each night with rum. The day before Christmas Eve I cover a layer in marzipan and then frost with royal icing. The other layers (my recipe makes 3) get another soaking of rum and remain in the fridge. If my mother goes to the Caribbean she takes a layer with her and gives pieces out to family. The last layer stays in the fridge until needed, usually until Easter.

Funnily enough, I mentioned yesterday that the Jamaican fruit cakes have the fruit minced - I think this may start more of a fermentation process and they're prone to going mouldy a bit more quickly than the fruit cakes that aren't (although I also suspect there's enough rum in those things to keep mould at bay! LOL!!)
 

Hi Mariel 9898, wow!  Do you really need all that rum? The most I would put in an 8 inch cake is a tbsp of clear rum, once a week, that seems to be sufficient. If you put that much rum, would it not overpower the taste of the cake?

I soak my fruit (about 1.25kg) in about 1/2 to 3/4 cup depending on how dry the fruit looks when I buy it.  I then pour a couple of tablespoons or so over after it is cooked.  I do not add anymore after that.  The alcohol flavour does not take over but it is a very rich, dense, moist cake.   I don't bother marzipanning, just fondant.  The old style thinking was that the marzipan stopped any brown color from the fruit was leaching into the fondant but I have never had any problems with this happening and most people nowadays don't seem to put the almond icing on as so many people don't like it.  It does make for a nice firm surface for working on, though.

A hello to you cazza1, thank you, that is actually the amount of rum I used, however I cannot find all the English ingredients here so I improvised, I usually use dried, apricots,plums, peaches,apples,golden and red raisins, pineapples, I also add orange juice to cover all the fruits. When I'm ready to bake I add ground almonds, this is a very heavy but ultra moist fruit cake,I cover with homemade marzipan, before I decorate.  You don't need to use Marzipan, but we like the taste, and when covered it actually lasts for a long time.the dried fruits I use have no added sugar, just simply dried. Thank you again for your clarification.

I have kept fruitcake out of the fridge for a full year--NO MOULD.  I treated it with 3 doses of rum applied 3 weeks apart. Wrapped in 2 sheets of kitchen plastic wrap and a zipping bag. Kept at 20C and never dried out. Tasted pretty good at the end of that year...

In my experience, fruitcake DOES NOT ripen properly in the fridge.  The high butter content hardens it up and it doesn't absorb the alcohol properly.

There is only one reason that fruitcake with alcohol can develop mould--and that is when the fruitcake is not properly cooked in the middle. This happened to me once when the raw batter was more than 3" deep, and even though I tested, it wasn;t cooked all the way through.

Hello BakingIrene, thank you so much for the much needed advise, I just took the fruit cakes out of the fridge. I am so unsure of what to do with the aging of the cakes, that I thought, it needs to be refrigerated. I like fruit cakes a lot so I bake a bunch of them so I don't ever run out. A sliver  of fruitcake is what I always have with breakfast and coffee. 

 Happy Valentines.

 

Will someone please tell me why some  rich fruitcake recipes donot require any leavening agents? What is the difference in the volume and consistency of the cake. Please help, thank you.

Because it isn't a light sponge cake.

It's a ton of fruit, held together with a tiny bit of cake batter!
 

“There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” -- Johnny Carson

Hello, hbqik, but really there has been so many jokes about fruit cake, why is that? I know the ones that we buy here in the markets, does not give justice to the cake really. D you have a recipe to share? Thanks.

Jamaican or other Caribbean type black fruitcakes contain a lot of alcohol and were developed long before the age or refrigeration in a part of the world that is very hot and humid so I don't think mold is a problem.

I was told that the tradition used to be to start soaking fruits for cakes when a couple got engaged. Months later, before the wedding two cakes were baked and doused with alcohol. One cake would be served at the wedding and another would be wrapped, rum would be added once in a while and that cake was served at the couple's first child's christening.

Thank you Mariel, there is a Jamaican Rum Cake posted in CC recipe Gallery, is that the kind of cake we are talking about? I have goggled a few of them and have several versions of how to bake one. I have improvised my own because I cannot find all the ingredients asked for by English recipes, anyway, my version is always coming out moist and scrumptious even after 4 weeks  only of aging, my mother-in-law calls it The Tropical Delight. Lol