Meet- Cute Fruitcake

“Our Holiday Story” on Hallmark Channel started with Dave and Nell meeting on a train (their ‘meet cute’ moment). When the train had to stop unexpectedly for a while, Dave’s romantic gesture to get off the train, and get Nell her favorite fruitcake, was the beginning of their love story! Traditional fruitcake includes being soaked in rum or another liquor, but I know not everyone is keen on the idea of fruitcake, so I made a gingerbread version with an orange icing to help introduce those who are too afraid to try fruitcake!

Ingredients:

-3/4 unsalted butter

-3/4 cups brown sugar

-2 cups of a variety of dried fruits, I used dried cherries, raisins, golden raisins and currants.

-2/3 cup orange juice

-A mix of lemon zest and orange zest

-1/2 cup molasses

-1 3/4 cups flour

-1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon ginger

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

-1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

-1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

-1/4 cup avocado oil

-3 eggs

-1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

In a saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar, dried fruits, orange juice, molasses, and the lemon and orange zest. Cook on low/medium until it’s all melted and combined. Continue to simmer about 5 minutes until it has thickened a bit. Place in a heat safe bowl to cool in the fridge.

While that cools, whisk together the eggs and avocado oil. Add that to the cooled mixture.

Add flour, baking powder, ginger, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Then stir in the chopped pecans.

Use any baking dish you’d like, I used a bundt pan. Oil and flour it well so that the cake doesn’t stick.

Bake it low and slow at 285 degrees for around 75 minutes until a toothpick comes out dry.

Icing (optional):

Mix together 1/2 cup powdered sugar with orange juice until you get the desired glaze consistency. Drizzle on cake and enjoy!