There are Christmas cake lovers and haters (see Christmas Cake and a Silly Song), but everyone is sure to like Pecan Christmas Loaf. It’s more like a quick or tea bread than a dense fruit cake, with a bit of red and green candied fruit to give it a seasonal look and taste. My cousin gave me a sample last year and I liked it so much I decided I would try it myself this Christmas.
I’m not sure where or who she got the recipe from, but like many old recipes on index cards, back when people had Recipe Boxes, this one seems somewhat vague. It doesn’t seem like there is enough flour for 2 loaves, but plenty of eggs and butter?
As I only wanted to make one loaf, I decided to cut the ingredients in half and then further adapted the flour according to my Date-Nut Loaf recipe, and a recipe I found online for Pecan Christmas Cake. When I googled most of the recipes were for Butter Pecan Cake, which called for even more butter.
Ingredients for One Loaf:
2 eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups of pecan pieces, 1/2 cup of dried candied/glazed red and green cherries/fruit mix, 1 1/2 cups of flour with the salt and baking powder already in it, and 1/2 cup of crushed pineapple bits with some liquid.
Mix the 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of melted butter, 5ml (1tsp) of vanilla and 3/4 cup of sugar together.
Add the 1 1/2 cup of pecan pieces and the 1/2 cup of green and red dried fruit mix, and the 1/2 cup of crushed pineapple. Next time I might add 2 cups of the pecan pieces which is what the recipe called for but as I bought my ingredients at the bulk barn I didn’t buy quite enough. I cut back on the dried fruit too, as I don’t like too much of that, and I hate those green cherries, but you can adjust as you wish to make it more like fruit cake. The bulk food store didn’t have any candied pineapple bits, nor did the grocery store, maybe they don’t make it anymore, (although they all seem to have large dried chunks), but I remember my mother adding a whole can of Dole crushed pineapple to her much bigger Christmas cake recipe, so I substituted that. I had to use a bit more of the juice as the batter was too dry.
You can adjust the pineapple/flour to get the consistency you want. See this is how you get vague recipe cards – an experienced cook doesn’t measure, they guestimate!
I always use a glass loaf tin so I can see if I am burning the bottom. The recipe card says oven at low setting 300-325 and bake for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 – 2hours – how’s that for general vagueness? Everyone’s oven is different, but nothing would ever cook in the middle at that low a temperature in my new oven. I regret keeping it, it’s such a temperamental thing. If I’ve used it the day before, it cooks faster. If it’s sat unused all week, it takes forever. I set it at 350, although I had it at 375 for the first 15 minutes, and it took about an hour. It was perfectly done in the middle, if a bit dark on the edges. I use the regular bake setting, not the convection one, as nothing browns with it.
It was a fairly small loaf, so I wish I had made two, as my cousin tells me it freezes well. I fed some to the snow shoveler right hot out of the oven!
Nice for Christmas Day brunch or with a cup of tea on a cold winter’s night…..but why do I always get the piece with the green cherries?
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