Polish fruit cake (keks): a buttery loaf packed with raisins, prunes, peel and walnuts
The Christmas keks from grandmother's notebook: a creamed butter cake with almost as much dried fruit as batter. Raisins, prunes, candied orange peel and walnuts, splashed with rum and tossed in flour so they don't sink to the bottom. It bakes long and slow, and is best after two days, once the fruit has given back its moisture.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Fruit soaking 30 min
- Creaming 20 min
- Baking 65 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
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Splash the fruit
Mix the raisins, prunes, peel and walnuts in a bowl with the rum and leave 30 minutes. Dry fruit drinks the alcohol instead of the moisture from the batter, so the cake doesn't turn dry. Heat the oven to 170 °C, line the loaf tin with paper.
Ingredients: 100 g raisins · 80 g prunes · 80 g candied orange peel · 80 g walnuts · 2 tbsp rum or spirit · 1 tbsp plain flour
TipWithout alcohol: 2 spoons of orange juice do the same, the cake just keeps less long.
Rum over the fruit, half an hour
Cream the butter with sugar and eggs
Beat the soft butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar 4 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each until smooth. Add the lemon zest and salt.
Ingredients: 200 g butter · 150 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 4 pcs eggs · 250 g plain flour · 1½ tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon, zest · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp icing sugar
TipCold eggs curdle the mass into lumps. If that happens, add a spoon of the measured flour and keep beating.
Pale and fluffy, eggs one at a time
Fold in the flour
Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold in with a spatula or the mixer on its lowest speed, only until combined. The batter is thick; it has to hold the fruit, not let it slide.
A thick batter, briefly mixed
Toss the fruit in flour
Sprinkle the soaked fruit with a spoon of flour and toss until every piece is dusted. Floured fruit slides less in the batter and is less likely to sink to the bottom of the cake.
TipTogether with a thick batter, this step keeps the fruit in every slice rather than in one layer at the base. Don't skip it.
A spoon of flour, every piece dusted
Combine and fill the tin
Fold the fruit into the batter with a few strokes of the spatula from the bottom up. Spoon into the tin, level and smooth the top with a wet spoon.
A few strokes from the bottom, into the tin, level
Bake long and slow
Bake 60–65 minutes at 170 °C, until the top splits and turns golden and a skewer in the centre comes out dry. Cover with foil after 40 minutes if it browns too fast. A heavy fruit-laden batter needs low heat and time, or the centre stays raw.
An hour at 170 °C, a dry skewerCool and wait
Leave in the tin 15 minutes, lift out by the paper and cool on a rack. Dust the cold cake with icing sugar. Best after 2 days wrapped in foil; keeps up to 2 weeks somewhere cool.
Best after two days
Before you start
Fruit of your choice
What matters is about 340 g in total: cranberries, dried apricots, figs, almonds, hazelnuts. Always keep the orange peel; it is what gives keks its scent.
With chocolate and cocoa
2 spoons of cocoa in the flour and 80 g chopped dark chocolate among the fruit: a dark, more dessert-like keks.
The fruit sank
Batter too loose, or fruit not floured. Stick to 250 g flour, add no milk, and always toss the fruit.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
