The Secret To Cutting Fruit Cake Without It Crumbling Apart

Some of the best holiday dessert recipes include sugar cookies, mince pies, and gingerbread, but few things feel more festive and seasonally specific than fruit cake. Fruit cake has struggled with its reputation — comedians and talk show hosts have been poking fun at it since the 1950s, and it often gets left behind on Christmas dessert tables for other treats. But that's just because people may have tried less-than-stellar examples that were too dry or stodgy. In reality, fruit cake can be a delicious indulgence of moist cake, nuts, and tart dried fruits soaked in rum or brandy for sweetness. It's complex — soft with juicy, chewy bites of apricots, dates, and cherries — and serves up some crunch with those nuts. 

But there's one challenge even bigger than overcoming fruit cake's bad rap and convincing friends and family of its tastiness — which is easy once they try it — and that obstacle is cutting the loaf. Take a cake knife or flat-edged knife to fruit cake and go for a simple cut, and you'll end up with a pile of crumbs, nuts, and fruit. Thankfully, there's a solution, so you can serve up beautiful slices instead of jumbled ingredients. Use a thin bread knife with a serrated edge. Slice into the loaf and gently but firmly saw through it back and forth. This cleanly separates a piece, rather than pushing the mix-ins to the bottom and destroying the loaf's structure.

The reason fruit cake doesn't cut neatly and smoothly like a more traditional cake is because of its many mix-ins. The average recipe for fruit cake calls for anywhere from ½ cup to 1½ cups of multiple different fruits, plus nuts, and these kinds of ingredients are heavy. It's why Julia Child developed a foolproof trick for keeping fruit from sinking to the bottom of cakes – put fruit into batter, and it wants to fall. Even once your bake is finished, and even if you've baked a perfect loaf that's moist and springy yet has structural integrity, pushing into it with a blunt-edged knife will inevitably shove all those heavy mix-ins down, tearing down the cake with it. 

A serrated bread knife allows you to gently saw back and forth through the loaf, separating a slice with those sharp edges without having to apply pressure downward. Thomas Keller even recommends using a bread knife to cut tomatoes for the same reason: It slices, but it doesn't crush or tear. Additionally, this sawing with a bread knife allows you to cut thinner slices, which will improve holiday guests' fruit cake experience even more, as thinner slices deliver flavor and texture without too much density or richness. Try toasting the slices to caramelize the fruit and serve them with butter or the contrast of sharp cheddar cheese, or scoop sweet, creamy vanilla ice cream on top.