Packed with plump, juicy fruit and sweetened with pumpkin and apricot nectar this Pumpkin Fruit Cake is a luscious snack cake that is almost irresistible!
These days most people can be placed into one of two categories; fruit cake lovers or fruit cake haters. I myself am very much a fruit cake lover! I grew up eating fruit cake as a regular afterschool snack and in my family Christmas just would not be Christmas without a traditional Christmas fruit cake!
Speaking of Christmas cakes, if you want a great Christmas cake recipe check out this Easy Mix Christmas Cake recipe that I shared a couple of years ago. I usually make this Christmas cake a few weeks before Christmas so that it is really rich and moist by Christmas day!
If however you don’t want to wait a few weeks to get a moist and tasty fruit cake then you need to try this pumpkin fruit cake. I came across this recipe on a packet of Sunbeam mixed fruit that I had in the pantry and decided to give it a try (see the original recipe here).
We still have one of our butternut pumpkins from our autumn harvest so I thought this would be great opportunity to try using it in a sweet pumpkin recipe. The only modification that I made to the recipe was to change the shape of the baking tin. The original recipe suggested using a 20cm round tin but I wanted to be able to cut it up into small slices so I chose the rectangular slice tin instead. As a result the fruit cake is not quite as high but it does cook quicker!
So if you can’t wait till Christmas to have a delicious slice of moist fruit cake then I can highly recommend you make this Pumpkin Fruit Cake!
- 500g of mixed fruit
- 1½ cups of lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon of golden syrup
- 125g of butter
- 1 cup of apricot nectar
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 cup of cold pumpkin, cooked and mashed*
- 1 cup of sifted plain flour
- 1 cup of sifted self raising flour
- Place mixed fruit, brown sugar, golden syrup, butter, and apricot nectar into a large saucepan and stir it continuously over a medium heat until the mixture comes to the boil.
- Once boiling, reduce the heat and allow the mixture to simmer gently for 10 minutes as you continue stirring.
- After 10 minutes remove from heat and add the baking soda. Stir the mixture thoroughly and allow it to cool.
- While mixture is cooling preheat oven to 160 °C (320 °F) and grease and line a 20cm x 30cm (8 x 12 inch) rectangular slice tin.
- Once cooled (saucepan is just warm to the touch) add eggs and pumpkin and beat with wooden spoon until smooth.
- Add flours and mix well to combine.
- Place mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Allow to cool completely in tin before slicing and serving.
I have tried this recipe and love it, so moist and delicious! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Jennifer, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I am about to make this cake for our family Chrissy cake will let you know how the family like it. Robyn
I haven’t though of using this cake as a Christmas cake, please do let me know how it turns out Robyn!