Christmas Fruit Cake / Plum Cake

Merry X’mas to all!!

Hope everyone celebrated x’mas with full spirit and joy. I couldn’t post this before x’mas  due to the festival engagements. In traditional recipe the dry fruits are soaked in rum/wine one month or even two weeks before baking. Instead of alcohol you can use fruit juices like grape or orange. Here I have used orange juice for soaking.

Ingredients

• All purpose flour – 2 cups
• Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
• Baking soda – ½ teaspoon
• Brown sugar – 1 cup
• Unsalted Butter – 250 grams
• Egg – 4
• Vanilla essence – 2 teaspoon
• Cloves – 2
• Cardamom – 2
• Cinnamon – a small piece
• Nutmeg – a small piece
• Dry  fruits – 2 cups (dates,apricots,cherries,sultanas,raisins,tutti frutti, cashew, almond,orange zest)

For Caramel

• Sugar – ½ cup
• Water – 1 tablespoon
• Warm water – ¼ cup

Preparation

1. Soak dry  fruits in 1 cup of fresh orange juice. Leave it overnight at room temperature.
2. Grind cloves,cardamom and nutmeg with a pinch of sugar, to a fine powder and keep aside.
3. For caramel,take sugar with 1 tablespoon of water in a sauce pan and heat it on low heat. It will start to crystallize, keep stirring and it will slowly start to melt. Keep on heating till it becomes dark brown. Remove the pan from fire and add 1/4 cup water to it.Bring it back to the heat and boil till the sugar dissolves again. Set aside to cool completely.
4. Preheat the oven at 180 C for 15 minutes. Drain the soaked fruits and toss it with 2 tablespoon of flour.
5. Sift the flour with baking powder and baking soda. Powder the sugar and keep aside. Separate the yolks and white of the eggs.
6. Beat egg whites till soft peaks form and keep aside. Beat the egg yolks and add the softened butter to it. Beat it till it forms a smooth paste. Add powdered sugar to this, gradually and beat it till it becomes smooth.
7. Add vanilla essence, cooled caramel,spice powder and beat again. Add the sifted flour little by little and beat after each addition.
8. Fold in the beaten egg whites and combine till no white streaks are visible. Fold in the soaked fruits.
9. Grease the baking dish and line with baking paper. Pour the batter into the prepared tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Note :

• Baking time can vary depends on the oven.
• Brown sugar is added for color, Instead of that you can use white sugar also.
• You can refrigerate this cake in an air tight container for one month.

Check out more Christmas Recipes