O.K. I think the heading says it all.  Now I am wondering what is right.  Since we shifted to the other side of Australia, and across the road from the beach, my fruitcakes have been leaking a brown sugary mess from inside when they have been sitting iced for a couple of days.  I put it down to increased humidity as we had come from an extremely dry area and I had never had this problem before.  But guess what?  It wasn't humid this week and the latest cake is still leaking.  

Basically, what is happening is that the fondant is being dissolved on the inside.  I am wondering if it is maybe from all the alcohol that I soak the fruit in before I make the cake.  This makes for an extremely moist, delicious cake and the dissolving sugar is actually basting the cake and making it even more delicious but it ruins the look of your cake when there is a puddle of brown sticky looking much around the base.  

A few years back I covered one of my fruitcakes with almond icing before the fondant, and when we cut it the almond icing had completely liquified and there was none left.  I had looked at the cake for a month and it had happened in this time.

This is where I throw in a big HELP!  Anyone got any suggestions, apart from removing all the alcohol.

TIA

Do you seal your cakes with apricot jam before putting the marzipan on?  That might help...

The same thing has happened to me since coming to Canada. I brush my cake with warm apricot and thought that might be the cause. Love to know why that happens.

@cazza1  I'm of no help at all, but I'm drooling with desire for one of those fruitcakes   yum yum..........  (a thin layer of firm white chocolate ganache to hold all the yummy in?)

Ha, Ha MB , I love ganache too, and all things chocolate but it would not go with the fruitcake.  Hubby said to tell you to get a life and try Lawn Bowls! (Yeah as if that's a life).  First I was chuckling about his comment and then I started getting hysterical trying to imagine lawn bowls outside in the middle of winter.

Lizzie and sweet tooth you seem to be at odds but I am prepared to try anything.  Well not quite, ganache is taking it a bit far.  I don't brush with apricot jam anymore but you reminded me that I used to years ago.  Then when I stopped using almond icing I stopped using jam.  So that one time I did apply the almond it would not have had jam on it.

AI reckon curling is a little more appropriate to the Alaskan environment than lawn bowls.....and probably just a exciting!

And [@]cazza1[/@], I'm really sorry, I haven't had the same thing happen to my fruit cakes and sometimes my MIL leaves my Christmas ones sitting around till Easter, and it can get pretty warm and humid in Melbourne in summer. I use apricot jam, marzipan and fondant or jam and a double layer of fondant to cover them.

Mind you, I have 12 cakes sitting ready to cover next month and now I'm expecting Leak-gate because I said it had never happened to me.....

AOk, here's the dirty on my cakes - I macerate the fruit for about four days in 1/2 cup booze (that's for a single mix which fills an 8" tin or lots of little tins) Then cook cakes, feed lots more booze for next month or so. Cover in Orchard almond paste from supermarket and bakels fondant using boiled apricot jam between cake and almond, and vodka between almond and fondant. Or cover in double layer of fondant.

I'm not sure what to suggest, but do not remove the alcohol. I don't know about you, but without alcohol, Christmas would be much tougher!

Could you try sealing the base of the cake in almond paste too, so the cake is sealed in all directions, and it might slow down the leaking? Once it's covered in fondant you wouldn't be able to tell there's an extra layer on the base and you could just peel it away rather than eat it.

Good luck! And thanks for the image of Alaskan lawn bowls......way too funny!

I think its the booze baby, that's whats leaking, lovely sugary booze. I made my daughters wedding cake 3 months ahead of time (second tier) and was liberal with the cognac, I mean liberal.

When I marzipaned and iced  it 3 days before the wedding I found little spots on the cakeboard which were suspicious but delicious.

A four tier cake became a three as I was worried about it leaking over the fondant and flowers of the tier below  and used the leaky one as a kitchen cake which was delicious but ultra moist. Just far too much booze in it between the week long soaking of the fruits and the weekly feed leading up to the wedding.

I have only ever had an American fruitcake which we use as a joke.  You only give a fruitcake to someone you dislike....  The fruitcakes you all describe are making me drool, and sound nothing like the cake I was forced to try as a kid.  Even this fat girl who loves cake didn't love that.

I am still drooling.  I think I am going to have to research the fruitcake and try to come up with a recipe!  I see some experimentation coming in the near future!!

I don't feed my cakes after they are cooked but the 1/2 cup dark rum that the fruit macerates in can become nearly 1/2 bottle if it sits on the bench and I don't get around to cooking.  I just keep adding more booze, never less than a cup and then I add the original half a cup again just before cooking.  It is delicious and I don't drink.  I don't need to drink cos I can eat fruitcake every day instead.

Mum was telling me that at her 60 she went to take the leftover fruitcake home and there was virtually none left.  This from the part of the family that swears that they don not like fruit cake.  She's gone back to hiding them.  SIL is visiting at the moment and she says she never gets offered any of my fruitcakes when she is at Mum's.

@ cazza1    This is as close to a fruit cake as I get, they just came on sale at the grocery store today ( YeeHa)  There is no alcohol in them.  They are made in Georgia, USA. No icing, fondant, or almond paste is put on them, they are eaten like a loaf of bread or a pound cake.

http://www.bensonsbakery.com/fruitcake/

It would be nice if you could find a resolution to your issue.  It's funny that people would deny that they love to dig in to your cake.  I'd be bragging about getting some of it.  Good on your mum for hiding her treasure.................

You cannot buy a REAL fruitcake from the supermarket.  They are just not the same.  They are bordering on dry and are definitely boring compared to the real thing.  You do need to love sultanas, raisins etc, though.  Comparing a supermarket fruitcake to a real one is a bit like comparing a mud cake to a packet chocolate cake.

...and the cake in the link looks like a light fruit cake which just does not cut the mustard.  Mine are almost black.

Fruitcakes in the US are quite different from yours, @cazza1. Sad, but our classic fruitcake is the kind that @MBalaska showed us, above. Many years ago I worked in the R&D lab as the baker/chef for a snack cake company. The sales department wanted to start producing fruitcakes and sent me samples they'd purchased so I could begin making prototypes. Ugh, the samples were all light fruitcakes that were not thoroughly baked. The insides were actually gooey-raw. And that is what the sales force liked - the gooey texture.

Yew, no wonder you guys over there do not like fruitcake.  You don't know what you are missing out on.

recipe, please.

My fruit cakes are alcohol free but after baked and cooled I do turn them it upside down and spritz with apple juice. I am wondering if that is causing the leakiness altho' I've almost always done that. Then I wrap up the cake and after a few days I brush with warm apricot jam and cover with marzipan.That sits for a couple of days to dry a little. Finally cover  with fondant or royal icing depends on my mood.

So the leaking only happens after we and it's the marzipan that oozes like yellow butter. I'm wondering if it is the quality of marzipan there might be a very high content of sugar, Maybe I should try  with some home-made almond paste.

Cazza1 do you make your marzipan or buy it? 

I read one "British" fruitcake recipe where the fruit was rehydrated with tea. Personally, I would prefer the booze kind.

If your not afraid to read about the 'GOONS' that they say first started it, Here's a link to "A Short History of Fruitcake" in America and now it got started in the early days of the USA. 

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-11-19/restaurants/a-short-history-of-fruitcake/

sweettooth I do not marzipan my cakes anymore.  The last one was years ago and that was the first cake that leaked.  Since then I just use fondant but it leaks as well.Leah I will post the recipe for you soon.

RECIPE from the Australian Women's Weekly

500g sultanas

250g raisins, chopped

125g currants

125g mixed peel

125g glace cherries, quartered

2 tablespoons marmalade

1/2 rum

250g butter

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

1 tablespoon grated orange rind

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

4 eggs, 2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons mixed spice

Combine all fruit, marmalade and rum in a large bowl;mix well

Cream butter and rinds until smooth, add sugar beat until combined

Add eggs one at a time, beat only until combined between additions

Add creamed mix to fruit mix; mix well

Mix in sifted dry ingredients thoroughly

Spread into deep 19cm square or deep 23cm round prepared cake pan

Bake in a slow oven (150C) oven for 3 to 3.5 hours.

Nowadays I leave the fruit soaking in alcohol on the bench for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.  It is a lovely cake made as above but it is even better when the fruit has been soaked.  How long it soaks for just depends on how side tracked I get with life and I just keep topping it up the longer it sits there.

After it comes out of the oven I brush a couple of tablespoons over the top, cover with foil and then leave tipped upside down on the bench, with the tin on top. to cool and self level, for a couple of days.

I do wrap the cake well in layers of newspaper and put paper on top and under tin whilst cooking too stop the outside cooking too quick.  Or this week because I had a pile of little tins of fruitcake I put them all inside a cardboard box to cook instead of wrapping.  This worked well and would also work for bigger cakes if you have an appropriate sized box.

cazza, thanks for sharing.  Is the rum a half cup?  And under the instructions, when it comes out of the oven....what do you brush a couple of tablespoons of over the top?  Is that rum?   And my ignorance is showing through here, but what are sultanas?  Are those bananas?

ASnap, Cazza, that's the recipe I use too! The pudding recipe is fantastic too, I have to restrict myself to making it only at Christmas or I would be enormous!

sultanas are what we in the US call golden raisins.  Gonna have to dust off my metric conversions and make this.  

PS, I'm using bourbon.  This is KENTUCKY!

Golden raisins, and regular raisins I can buy, but where in the USA would you buy mixed peel?  or would it be ok without it?  Everything else I can by locally.

AYou can definitely leave out the mixed peel, a lot of Australians do because it's an acquired taste. It's just candied lemon and orange rind, chopped finely. You could sub in any fruit to give the equivalent weight.

And for a conversion to imperial measures, the original recipe is in ounces (I have my mother's book from the 1960s). Just work on 125g to 4 ounces......that will give you the original quantities.

Good luck, and don't forget to feed it an insane amount of alcohol after it's baked, the cake needs a drink every week! I normally bake the first week of November (that's a holiday weekend in Victoria) for all my Christmas cakes and puddings. Plenty of time to feed those cakes before Christmas!

Yes Gerle it's half a cup of rum and then brushed with rum.  You can use any flavour alcohol you like and I use the fruitcake on many occasions to use up left over bottles as I very rarely end up with less than 1 whole cup  of alcohol in there.  I do like the rum the best but someone left a bottle of maderia  once and it was really nice too.  I prefer the heavier flavour alcohols in this cake.

Golden raisins in Australia are obviously different to those in the states.

MB I have made it without peel when I have been too lazy to drive to the shops.

I, too, have made the boiled Christmas pudding, winniemog and it is devine.  If you freeze it into portion slices you can eat it at any time of the year and the cream cheese 'rum cream sauce' and custard and homemade vanilla ice-cream turn it into heaven on earth.  Yeah I know, the waistline.  I spend half my life eating and the other half dieting and exercising to make up for what I put in my mouth.

Oh and make sure you line the insides of your tin for ease of removal.