Traditional fruitcake laden with many memories Homemade Holidays
By: Eva Wasney Posted: 2:00 AM CST Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025

Susan Shortill isn’t a big fan of fruitcake. But she is a fan of this fruitcake.

“Fruitcake is polarizing. I don’t personally love it, especially when you would go to weddings back in the day and you would get that little chunk of dried-out (cake), but this changed my mind,” she says.

For one, it’s moist and chocolatey. For two, it comes from Dr. Sheena Guest, close family friend who hailed from Scotland and has since died.

Shortill has kept this Chocolate Fruitcake in her collection of stained, tattered and well-loved recipe cards for nearly 50 years.

“I have many recipes from friends and contacts. Many of these folks have passed. My recipe books… keep their memories alive every time I recreate them,” Shortill says. “Memories of Sheena live on when we make this.”

Although, the memories can get a little fuzzy during the baking process.

“This is a traditional style of fruitcake, where you buy all the fruits ahead of time and you soak them in honey and rum. Then when you bake it, you add some more rum and you drink a little bit of rum when you’re doing it too,” she says with a laugh.

Chocolate Fruitcake

225 g (1/2 lb) raisins

225 g (1/2 lb) golden raisins

225 g (1/2 lb) glacé cherries, halved

225 g (1/2 lb) dates, chopped

225 g (1/2 lb) glacé pineapple

60 ml (1/4 cup) candied lemon peel

125 ml (1/2 cup) honey

250 ml (1 cup) dark rum, divided

80 ml (1/3 cup) butter, softened

180 ml (3/4 cup) dark brown sugar

3 eggs

125 ml (1/2 cup) flour

125 ml (1/2 cup) cocoa powder

5 ml (1 tsp) cinnamon

2.5 ml (1/4 tsp) salt

60 ml (1/4 cup) walnuts, chopped

60 ml (1/4 cup) blanched almonds, chopped

60 ml (1/4 cup) pecans, chopped

Mix dried and candied fruits together with honey and 1/2 cup of dark rum in a large bowl. Cover and let macerate (soak) on the counter or in the fridge for 48 hours. Stir in remaining rum.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar together. Beat in eggs one at a time.

In another bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt together.

To the bowl with the creamed sugar and egg mixture, alternate between adding the sifted flour and fruit mixture to form a batter. Add nuts and mix well to combine.

Butter two loaf pans and line with parchment paper. Divide the batter between the pans.

Preheat the oven to 300 F and bake for 2 hours, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack and store in the fridge for several weeks or freezer for several months.

— Susan Shortill

Homemade Holidays is an annual Free Press tradition featuring 12 festive desserts published over 12 days in December. Click here to find this year’s batch of reader-submitted recipes.

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Eva Wasney
Reporter

Eva Wasney has been a reporter with the Free Press Arts & Life department since 2019. Read more about Eva.

Every piece of reporting Eva produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.