Learn how to make the best fruitcake cookies with this easy recipe for slice-and-bake holiday cookies. These icebox cookies are flavourful and festive, spiced with cardamom and allspice, and made with raisins, candied peel, walnuts, ginger, and cherries
The slice-and-bake method is a quick and easy way for you to produce dozens and dozens of cookies in almost no time. It's actually faster to do than scooped cookies, though you do have to factor the time it takes to chill the cookie dough.
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Fruitcake Cookie Ingredients
If you want to make fruitcake cookies, you will need the following ingredients:
- butter, preferably unsalted butter. If you have salted butter, it will work. Just adjust the salt in the recipe accordingly, otherwise your cookies may be too salty
- sugar—we use a combination of granulated sugar (helps give a crispy edge) and brown sugar (for flavour and softness). The combination leads to the perfect texture for a slice-and-bake cookie, not too soft, not too crunchy.
- eggs—use large eggs. Smaller eggs may lead to a dryer cookie dough and your cookies won't spread enough. Extra large eggs could cause the cookie dough to puff too much as it bakes, leading to a more cake-y cookie
- all-purpose flour is needed to bind all the ingredients together and give the cookies structure. If you don't use enough flour, your cookies may spread too much as they bake or they may fall apart with all the dried fruit.
- spices—I used a combination of ground cardamom and allspice. Feel free to vary the spices. You can try cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves too if you prefer. Just remember with some of these warm spices, a little goes a long way!
- salt is really important to balance out the sweet flavour of the candied fruit and dried fruit. Don't skip it. I like to use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but table salt will work, though the cookies will be saltier and you may want to halve the salt in that case.
- candied and/or dried fruit is the secret to the best fruitcake cookies because they add a ton of flavour and sweetness and you can choose your favourites to mix into the cookie dough.
- nuts—I used toasted walnuts. They add both flavour and texture to the cookie.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Substitutions and Variations
You can get creative with a few of the ingredients:
- Alcohol—I used brandy, but you could also use spiced or dark rum. The flavour is subtle in the final cookie but the alcohol helps hydrate the dried fruit to plump it.
- Spices—instead of ground cardamom and allspice, you can try cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, or ginger.
- Dried/candied fruit—I used a combination of raisins, mixed candied fruit (citrus peel and cherries, diced finely), but you could use dried apricots, dried cranberries, dried dates, diced crystallized ginger, or even chopped dried figs. Use the fruit you like, and keep the total weight of candied/dried fruit the same as in the recipe.
- Nuts—instead of the walnuts, replace them with the same weight of toasted almonds (chopped) and you could even incorporate pure almond extract in the dough to enhance that flavour. You could also try pecans or hazelnuts, if you prefer.
How to Make Slice-and-Bake Fruitcake Cookies
Slice-and-bake cookies are your best bet when it comes to pumping out a large number of cookies in a short amount of time and with less effort. Why? Because slice-and-bake cookie dough can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for several days. Or you can freeze it for up to 1 month. When you are ready to bake, try to take the cookie dough out of the freezer the day before. Then all you have to do is slice and bake them!
Step 1: Start by combining the candied/dried fruit in a small saucepan with the brandy (or rum) (image 1). Heat them up for a few minutes, then when the mixture is steamy, take the pan off the heat and let the fruit soak.
Tip: The fruit mixture needs to cool down before you incorporate it into the cookie dough, so sometimes I do this step the day before.
Step 2: Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, spices, and salt) in a medium bowl (image 2). Set aside for later.
Step 3: Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (image 3). Beat the ingredients together until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula every so often (image 4).
Step 4: Add the egg to the mixer bowl (image 5) and stir it until well mixed, then stir in the dry ingredients (image 6). Once the cookie dough has come together, add the toasted walnuts and soaked dried/candied fruit (image 7). Stir the dough until the fruit and nuts are incorporated (image 8).
Step 5: Divide the dough into 4 equal portions using a kitchen scale (image 9). This works out to portions of approximately 365 grams of dough. Shape the dough into logs—I shaped my dough into square logs, flattening it on all sides (image 10). Wrap the logs of dough tightly in plastic wrap (image 11) and refrigerate overnight. The longest part is waiting for the logs of cookie dough to chill before slicing until the butter is hard. This way, the cookies will hold their shape better.
Step 6: Slice the logs of dough into ⅛–¼-inch thick cookies on a cutting board using a large Chef's knife (image 12).
Step 7: Slice-and-bake or icebox cookies don't spread in the oven, so you can place them more tightly on your cookie sheets, allowing you to bake 24 cookies per half-sheet pan (image13)! Bake until the cookies look set and the edges are just beginning to brown (image 14).
Top Tip
Toast your nuts before baking with them whenever you can! They taste so much better this way. I like to use a mini sheet pan for this job and I toast nuts in the oven as it's preheating to 350 °F (175 °C). Just make sure to set a timer when you do this because it's so easy to forget them. It can take 10–15 minutes depending how packed they are on the sheet pan and your oven temperature.
Toasting nuts in the oven is more even than in a skillet on the stove.
Slice-and-Bake Cookie FAQs
When you refrigerate a log of cookie dough, initially the dough is soft and pliable. The side resting on your fridge shelf will flatten out a little. To avoid this, rotate the log of dough every 10 minutes to allow it to cool evenly while maintaining the shape of the log. Alternatively, you can try placing the log of dough in a paper towel cardboard roll. Cut it lengthwise and slide your wrapped dough in the tube. The same may happen when you press the log while slicing it into cookies. The trick again is to rotate the log every few slices to maintain the shape.
For these cookies, I avoided the issue by creating a square log!
If your cookies spread out, either your oven wasn't hot enough, your dough wasn't chilled properly, or you may have mismeasured the butter, sugar, or flour. Please read about why cookies spread to find out more about this issue.
What if You Hate Fruitcake?
If you don't love fruitcake, I'm not here to judge you. Try these slice-and-bake crystallized ginger cookies and slice-and-bake gingerbread cookies instead. Both are very easy and still quite festive for the holidays. Try the cinnamon rugelach with dried cranberries if you dare to make something more elaborate.
If fruitcake cookies aren't enough to satisfy your craving, try this light fruitcake topped with marzipan and brandy frosting. It's a family favourite, and you can bake it in a couple of loaf pans or muffin tins.
If you tried this recipe for fruitcake cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Icebox Fruitcake Cookies
Ingredients
- 454 grams chopped candied fruit mix or dried fruit, chopped (see note below recipe)
- 45 mL brandy
- 333 grams bleached all-purpose flour
- 3.75 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 3.75 mL ground cardamom
- 1.25 mL ground allspice
- 230 grams unsalted butter room temperature
- 100 grams granulated sugar
- 72 grams light brown sugar
- 1 large egg(s)
- 170 grams chopped walnuts toasted and chopped
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine the candied/dried fruits and/or raisins with the brandy. Heat to warm up everything until the mixture is steamy, then remove the saucepan from the heat and let stand.
- Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour with the spices. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the flour to the mixer bowl in three additions, stirring between each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed. When the last of the flour has almost disappeared into the dough, add the soaked fruit (plus any remaining brandy that didn't get soaked up) and the walnuts. Stir to combine.
- Divide the dough into 4 and roll each piece into a log of about 2-inches diameter. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven at 350ºF (175 °C) . Line a couple half sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Slice each log into about ⅛–¼ inch (3–6 mm) thick cookies and arrange on parchment-lined baking sheets spaced 1 inch apart.
- Bake the cookies until set, about 12–14 minutes. The longer they stay in the oven, the crisper they will be.
Notes
- This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
- For the candied fruit, you can use any or even dried fruit, diced fairly fine. Use the same total weight of fruit as in the recipe:
- raisins or dried currants
- dried cherries or dried cranberries
- crystallized ginger
- candied citrus peel (lemon, orange, or citron)
- glacéed cherries (chop them up in to small pieces!)
- dried figs, apricots, or dates
- For the nuts, instead of walnuts, you can try toasted almonds, pecans or hazelnuts.
- Instead of brandy, you can use spiced or dark rum.
- You may want to prepare the candied/dried fruit the day before, soaking it in brandy overnight to give the fruit time to absorb the alcohol and also time to cool down before mixing it into the cookie dough.
- Be sure to chill the cookie dough overnight so that it is solid. This way, when you slice and bake the cookies, they will hold their shape quite well.
- If any of the cookies break as you slice through the nuts, simply press them back together.
- Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.
Ori A says
How far in advance before Christmas can these be made
Janice says
Hi! Slice & bake cookies like this can be stored for weeks in my opinion, in a sealed container. And by the way, feel free to cut them as thick or thin as you'd like. Some years I cut them thinner than pictured here. You just may have to adjust the baking time accordingly 😉
Michael Gerten says
Do use the brandy in the dough or drain it out?
Janice says
Hi, I add everything, so soaked fruit + leftover brandy that didn't get soaked up by the fruit! And thank you for your comment because it made me realize the way I wrote it out isn't clear so I will update the recipe 😉
Kim Matheson says
I am so excited about this recipe - thank you for posting it! (Just came across it on Pinterest while searching for something to do with leftover glacé fruit.)
Janice Lawandi says
Exactly, Kim! Great way to use up the odds and ends of glacéed cherries and candied peel. Merry Christmas 🙂
Kim Matheson says
Update: made 'em and wow! Awesome. I love them and have received naught but compliments for them! Thanks again for the recipe. 🙂
Pola M says
What a great idea! They look delicious!
Medeja says
Great idea! Your fruitcake cookies sound interesting and really yummy!
El says
They look great. Hope you had a Merry Christmas!
La Table De Nana says
Warmest wishes to you..these are cute:)