Traditional fruitcake laden with many memories
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/12/2025 (241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
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.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Susan Shortill’s chocolate fruitcake recipe comes from a close family friend.
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.
winnipegfreepress.com/evawasney
Eva Wasney has been a reporter with the Free Press Arts & Life department since 2019. Read more about Eva.
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