The day before yesterday, my daughter V asked, ‘Amma, everywhere I can feel the Christmassy atmosphere, why haven’t you made anything? Please make a plum cake.”
Immediately, daughter A said, “No need to do that grrrrrrrrrrr, It has raisins; I don’t like raisins in any baked goodies. Make Red velvet instead of plum cake.”
Finally, mamma came up with this win-win cake for both –
This cake has no booze or fruit juice, or raisins.
Ingredients:
Dry fruits to soak – 1/2 to 1 cup (dried cranberries, tutti-frutti)
For the Caramel:
Light brown sugar – ½ cup
Water – ¾ cup
Butter – 1 tsp
For the Cake:
All-purpose flour – 1 ½ cups ( you can take whole wheat flour + all-purpose flour as well)
Baking powder – ¾ tsp
Baking soda – ¾ tsp
Dry ginger powder – ¼ tsp
Cinnamon powder – ¼ tsp
Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp
Pinch of salt
Eggs – 2
Light brown sugar – ¾ cup
Melted Butter – ¾ cup
Fresh Orange rind – 1 to 2 tsp (grated)
Caramel – ½ cup
Dry Nuts – 1/4 cup (cashew and almonds)
Method:
-Make caramel in a thick-bottomed vessel. Heat sugar and butter until it melts; lower the heat, add water, mix nicely, boil, and add the dry fruits.
-Here, I took dried cranberries and tutti-frutti. Soak the dry fruits for 2 hrs.
-When you are ready to bake the cake, drain these soaked fruits, separate the caramel and fruits and keep them aside. This caramel can be used while mixing cake batter.
-The next step is the preparation of the cake batter –
-First, we will mix all the dry ingredients, from flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder, and salt, in one bowl and dry mix using a wire whisk.
-Drop all the dry fruits like soaked and drained dry fruits, chopped cashews and almonds
-Once again, mix the flour nicely and keep it aside. This is the dry ingredient mixture.
-The next step is- to preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
-Line the cake tin in which you want to bake. I have used a bread tin over here.
-Next, we should make a wet ingredient mixture. Break the eggs, beat them properly, and mix in butter, caramel, sugar, and grated Orange rind. Beat all these together until the sugar dissolves.
-Take one wooden spatula, fold it in the dry mixture, and make a uniform batter of wet and dry ingredients with a very light hand. Don’t overmix this.
-Now pour this ready batter into the lined cake tin, sprinkle some cashew and almond chunks, and bake this for 40 to 45 minutes or until done at 180* C. Enjoy this fruit cake this festive season!!!
