Admittedly, fruitcake isn’t always at the top of everyone’s holiday baking list. And honestly, I think the stuff gets a bad rap. Is there bad fruitcake out there? You bet there is. But there’s some great fruitcake out there, too.
Despite all of the fruitcake hate, a recipe for fruitcake cookies is something that I get requests for pretty frequently. I’m not sure if it’s just the nostalgia of a fruitcake cookie that has people excited about them or maybe folks just love the taste, but I think I’ve had 10 or 12 requests in the last week.
The thing about it is, I’ve never had a fruitcake cookie that I’ve liked. They all have just tasted so blah – nothing wrong with them, but nothing exciting either.
And despite the requests, I knew I didn’t want to put a recipe put there that I wasn’t 100% behind. I’ve tried a handful of different recipes, but was just never bowled over by any of them.
So, I knew we had to start from scratch.
Nearly every fruitcake cookie recipe I found used shortening. And for good reason. Shortening has a higher melting point which means cookies spread less and bake up taller because it gives the eggs more time to set before it melts.
The problem with shortening is that is doesn’t add any flavor. So I swapped the shortening for butter.
Butter adds flavor. And while the cookies might spread a little more and be a little chewier, those are things I was willing to risk to add flavor.
The other issue with fruitcake cookies is the actual fruit. A lot of the candied fruit in the grocery store is just not great. It’s been sitting on the shelf for a while and just doesn’t taste good.
So finding the right candied fruit is super important. Now this isn’t dried fruit. It’s candied fruit. Like this…
Some common brands you might find are Sunripe and Paradise. On several occasions, it’s been recommended that I buy the fruit from Nuts.com. They call it glazed fruit and apparently, it tastes much better. (If you’ve found some great candied fruit, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!)
Starting with better fruit is going to yield better cookies.
But even if you can only find the grocery store stuff, I’ve added in more flavor via vanilla, almond, and lemon extracts to give these cookies a punch.
Y’all enjoy!!
Recipe Card
Old Fashioned Fruitcake Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup diced candied pineapple
- 1 cup diced candied red cherries
- 1 cup diced candied green cherries
- 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300°F and line a cookie sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. Set aside.
- Use a mixer to cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla extract, almond extract, and lemon extract and mix well.
- In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Fold in the candied fruit and pecans.
- Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonsful onto the prepared cookie sheet about 3 to 4 inches apart. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until just golden brown. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for a few days or in the refrigerator for longer. Cookies can be wrapped tightly and frozen for a few months.
Notes
Please note:
If nutritional values are provided, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands used. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, I recommend grabbing your favorite brands and plugging those ingredients into an online nutritional calculator.
Any hints on best way to chop the candied fruit for fruitcake cookies?
You can lightly spray your knife with a little nonstick cooking spray and that will help. You may have to reapply a few times.
Cooking spray applied to the knife before chopping candied fruit really worked – thank you!
Happy to hear that helped!
Oh my!! This looks like the perfect recipe! My husband will love them!
Hope he enjoys them!
Thank you so much for posting this!! I made these fruitcake cookies with my mom for many years before she passed away in 1987 and through several moves somehow lost the recipie. I found recipes but they were not the ones we made together and so I kept looking. THIS is the recipe!! We always made them at Christmas and so I can’t wait to make them for my family this Christmas. My mom bought the cherries and pineapples the day after Christmas when they were half price and froze them to have for next year. Won’t do that this year because I can’t wait to make them but maybe the day after I’ll continue the tradition. Thanks again!!
Love this! Hope they’re as delicious as you remember!
I want to give 5 stars straight across but it would not these are so yummie I found your recipe last year family gobbled them up I got 1/2 cookie they asked me in October to make these again I will definitely make them today its snowing so a great day to bake since I’m done with everything else.
Merry Christmas 12-22-22
Nana Leslie
DELISH
Thanks, Debbie!
This is exactly how I’ve been making these cookies for 20+ years except for one important ingredient…the Bourbon! I only add a little but the flavor enhancement is unbeatable. Thanks for all your wonderful recipes. Merry Christmas and God bless.
I’ll have to try that. I’ve never heard of putting bourbon in fruitcake cookies. Merry Christmas!
I am getting ready to bake and I have the glazed mixed peel from Nuts.com. How much do I use 3 cups? Since it’s all mixed? It sounds like too much for the flour mixture so I wanted to ask.
Thanks!
I would guess the amount should be about the same.
I made these last Christmas and they were fabulous. Everyone I shared with, so enjoyed them.
I also want to mention that I did order the fruit from Nut.com and was very fresh and tasteful. I was so wondering if they would be too hard. They were not.
Making again this Christmas along with your Pecan Snowball Cookies. Looking forward on the taste.
Wonderful! And thank you for letting me know about the fruit. I’m going to go place an order right now.
I made these a few months ago. They are delicious and perfect!
Wonderful! Happy you enjoyed them!
These truly are the best fruitcake cookies. We made a second batch today and added 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Delicious!
That’s wonderful to hear! So glad that you enjoyed them!
My family has been making fruitcake cookies for as long as I can remember and I am 69 years old. Our recipe calls for bourbon and molasses. Mmmmm takes me back. My nephew made some this week and brought me some. So delicious!! Thanks for the memories!
I love hearing about family traditions based on recipes like this. Thanks for sharing, Susan!
Hello Stacey I love your idea, because I don’t use shortening in any of my baking I don’t like it, it doesn’t have not flavor at all
Hope you’ll enjoy these!
So yummy 😋 I will make them again 😀 I couldn’t find any pineapple so added for red & green candied fruit 😋😋😋
So glad you enjoyed them!
I left out the lemon extract and made my own candied pineapple with canned pineapple chunks boiled in sugar and corn syrup. After they became translucent I dehydrated them in the oven with drained maraschino cherries for 1/2 an hour at 200 degrees. Made the dough very moist so I needed to bake five minutes more but turned out really good.
Glad to hear you enjoyed these!
My Family says we now we have a new tradition cookie for Christmas made them Christmas eve they are gone by Christmas morning I did not get a one (sad face so iam making a new batch now,thank you for such great cookies,they remind me my Nana made something like this but she called them stained glass cookie.knew it was going to be good it came from the South.
Ha! Thanks so much for the high praise! Glad to hear y’all enjoyed them!
Do you think you could use the butter flavor crisco shortening sticks? Would it give it the flavor?
It will certainly give them some more flavor over the regular shortening, but won’t give it them as much flavor as butter will.
I’ve baked these for years without the lemon or almond extract and I give them as Christmas gifts. Everyone loves them!
They’re pretty delicious! Merry Christmas!
Those look delicious and I am going to make them and substitute with dates- figs- raisins–
This is a great recipe with a good size not a size for 48 cookies-
Thank you
Hope you’ll enjoy them!
The basic recipe was awesome. I did not put the pineapples in, and I substituted 8-10 gumdrops (NOT spice drops– UGH). I also used real lard (not the yucky dehydrogenated stuff grocery stores carry); I used something from fatworks.com, which is pricey but worth every penny. Works great for biscuits too, by the way, and don’t use nearly as much as you would if you had used shortening.
I also left out the lemon extract and substituted a tiny bit of cinnamon nutmeg, and a pinch of clove. Turned out incredible! I may never bake another regular fruit cake again!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your variations, Carol!
I have butter-vanilla baking emulsion, so I’m wondering if it would be possible to use a 50/50 blend of butter and shortening with satisfactory results?
It should work just fine.
Thanks for the response! I’m looking forward to trying these!
Enjoy!!