Holiday Fruitcake — The Bun Is in the Mail, and So Is the Tradition

St. Lucia Day. December 13. No procession. Sophie isn't here (she's working the COVID ward at Hennepin County — Christmas shifts for the new nurse). I baked the lussebullar. I lit the candles. I sang in the kitchen at six AM. I sang for Paul. I sang for Mamma. I sang for Mormor in Uppsala. I sang for every woman in the chain who wore the crown and carried the tray and sang in the dark kitchen before the sun came up. Sven lay at my feet and looked up at me with his soft brown eyes and his gray muzzle and his twelve-and-a-half-year-old body that moves slower every week and his tail wagged because I was singing and singing is one of the things that makes his tail wag, along with food and the word "walk" and the sound of the front door opening. I saved a lussebullar for Sophie. I'll mail it. A saffron bun in the mail — it won't arrive fresh, it'll be stale by the time she gets it, but the getting of it is the point. The chain. The bun. The December. The julbord preparations: herring curing. Meatballs rolled (one hundred — mine, with ginger). Rice pudding on Christmas Eve morning. The almond ready. This year I'll put the almond — where? Not in my bowl (I can't give myself the luck two years running). Not in a specific bowl (too much manipulation). I'll put it in the pudding and let chance decide. Chance. I've spent four years trying to control everything — the disease, the timeline, the outcome. Chance has been my enemy. This year, I'll let chance decide who gets the almond. I'll trust chance. I'll trust the rice pudding. I'll trust the stirring. I made a December dinner: glögg. Swedish mulled wine. Red wine, aquavit, spices, raisins, almonds. I heated it on the stove and the kitchen smelled like Christmas and I drank a cup — one cup, warm, the warmth going down — and I sat at the table with the Advent candles burning and the star in the window and the glögg in my hands. One cup of glögg. Alone. In December. In the kitchen where everything has happened and everything continues to happen. The chain holds. The bun is in the mail. The almond is in the pudding. Christmas is coming. I show up.

That morning in the kitchen — singing alone, the glögg warming on the stove, a lussebullar already wrapped for the mail — I kept thinking about what it means to make something with your hands and send it toward someone you love. The fruitcake is the same impulse: fruit and warmth and time pressed into a thing that travels, that keeps, that arrives. It’s not glamorous, but neither is showing up in a dark kitchen at six in the morning to light the candles anyway. This is what December asks of us, and this is what I make.

Holiday Fruitcake

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 1 hr 15 min | Total Time: 1 hr 40 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 1/2 cup dark rum or orange juice (for soaking)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup whole almonds, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
• Zest of 1 orange
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp molasses

Instructions

1. Soak the fruit. Combine cranberries, raisins, apricots, and cherries in a bowl. Pour rum or orange juice over the fruit, stir to coat, and let soak at least 2 hours or overnight. Drain any excess liquid before using.
2. Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 300°F (150°C). Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
3. Cream butter and sugar. Beat butter and brown sugar together with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes. Add molasses and mix to combine.
4. Add eggs. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions.
5. Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir just until combined — do not overmix.
6. Fold in fruit and nuts. Gently fold in the soaked dried fruit, almonds, walnuts or pecans, orange zest, and lemon zest until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
7. Bake. Spread batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake at 300°F for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 45 minutes.
8. Cool completely. Let the cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool fully before slicing. For best flavor, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let rest overnight before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 95mg