Name: Genoa Cake (Italian Christmas Cake)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 90 min
Ingredients: 125 gm unsalted butter (or refined Oil); 125 gm powdered sugar (caster Sugar); 3 egg (beaten); 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 1 tbsp Lemon zest (grated ); 1 tbsp Orange zest (grated ); 200 tutti frutti (or mixed preserved fruit or candied peel, better if soaked in Rum or Brandy); 2 tbsp Apricots (dried, chopped ); 25 gm Almonds (blanched ); 175 gm self raising flour (175 gms plain flour/all purpose flour/maida mixed with 2 tsp baking powder and sifted thrice); 1 teaspoon spices (powdered ); 60 ml Cointreau (or Brandy/Rum); 2 tbsp jam (Apricot or Strawberry best); 1 tbsp water; 1 handful Maraschino Cherries (Coloured ); Few Pineapple slices (Preserved ); 1 handful Strawberry (Dried, cherry and kiwi slices)

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Recipes

Genoa Cake as the name says comes from the city in Italy. It is a variant of the Pandolce Cake (which used Pine Nuts as the main ingredient and yeast as a raising ingredient) which originated in Genoa in the 16th century as a Christmas Cake)!

Unlike the Pandolce cake this is a beautifully boozy, fruity and nutty cake which uses whatever preserved fruits you can get.

It is great to know that the best preserved fruits can be sourced from France and Italy and they are in great demand especially after October as preparations for Christmas start and so are required in great quantity.

This is a delicious fruit cake with lovely assorted fruits, brushed over with liquid jam and studded on the top with more preserved fruits. The fruits are like jewels encrusted on the cake and look beautiful when slices are cut from the cake.

The jam helps the fruit stick and each slice has its own beauty! People living abroad have varied options to source preserved fruits as countries like USA and Canada import them from France and Italy and make their own especially the Florida mixed peel which is awesome in flavour!

For people in India if you can source preserved fruits online then great! Or if you live in a metro where you have special import stores to source them or through sites like Booyah Chicago! You can make your own Orange Peel as well by preserving them in syrup.

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 30

Served AsSnacks

CuisineItalian

Recipe Taste Sweet

Servings

Ingredients

Toppings

▢ 2 tbsp jam Apricot or Strawberry best
▢ 1 tbsp water
▢ 1 handful Maraschino Cherries Coloured
▢ Few Pineapple slices Preserved
▢ 1 handful Strawberry Dried, cherry and kiwi slices

Instructions

Notes

Here are a few options which you can use which are locally available here :

Bottled fruits like coloured Maraschino Cherries (stocked by Amazon and big import stores)
Red Indian “cherries” which is actually the preserved “Keronda” fruit! Is available locally in many cities and can be bought online as well.
You can use dried fruits like dried Kiwi, Strawberry, Pineapple, Mango, Guava, Cherry and Raspberry. Crawford Market and the Masjid area nearby have plenty of stock.
I used my own preserved Pineapple.
Use dried Apricots which are readily available.
Use tutti frutti or coloured and preserved Papaya easily available anywhere in India.
I had soaked some fruit in October itself in Rum for Christmas Cake.
I took 1/4 cup of those fruits plus I added the rest in the “mix and match” way to make up for the rest of the quantity! I have used Rum and syrup to pour into the cake later. However if you do not want to use liqueur then use the syrup from preserved Pineapple or Maraschino cherries.
In case you do not have that either then make a thin sugar syrup and add any kind of fruit flavouring to it like Pineapple or even 1 tsp Vanilla or Rum extract.

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