I wasn’t particularly looking forward to making a fruitcake, but I’m glad I did. For one, Larry has fond memories of his mom’s fruitcake – I never had it, but I trust that it was delicious, unlike many of the cloyingly sweet, leaden versions we’re all familiar with.

This is a very simple fruitcake, and it’s boozy but not overly so. Sometimes all you can taste is the alcohol in fruitcake. There aren’t any weirdly colored candied fruits, either – just dried pineapple (I used unsweetened) that’s softened and macerated a bit in rum, sugar and orange juice.

Nuts provide a bit of texture, and bread flour gives the cake structure without making it overly heavy.

It’s important to use good rum, since it’s fairly prominent, and is featured in the glaze of just powdered sugar and rum. We have a lot of rum in the house since it’s Larry’s preferred spirit. My go-to is Zacapa 23, but I happened to have the last bit of some Havana Club we’ve been rationing for the past year. We’re headed back to Cuba as I write this, so it seemed appropriate to use the Havana Club (it’s good, although we brought back other rums from our last trip that were less expensive and more delicious).

Larry brought most of the cake to our local coffee shop to hand out to the folks we see there on a regular basis, and the rest went to his work. We both really loved this cake. It’s light, not too sweet, and is perfect with a cup of tea.

For the recipe and to see how the other Baked Sunday Mornings bakers fared, head over to Baked Sunday Mornings.

• Orange Pineapple Walnut Fruitcake (Baked Occasions, p. 257)