Rich Christmas Cake / Plum Cake Recipe

Wish you all very Happy Christmas!!!!
This recipe is very special to me as this is my 50th post and also Divya Pramil and Priya Ranjit selected my  Rich Christmas Cake / Plum Cake Recipe as a  Best Christmas Cake  in their Christmas Fest Event .Thank you .

I tried this three or four times with little variations and finally arrived at this recipe fully loaded with dried fruits, nuts and spice flavours which is a big hit with my family and neighbours. I thank my friend Lakshmi Krishnamoorthy from whom I got the base recipe and my neighbour Lolita who made the photos more attractive with accessories / decorations. 

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Sugar – 1½ cups (powdered)
Butter -1 cup
Eggs - 4
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Sultanas - ½ cup
Tuity fruity - ½ cup
Raisins – ½ cup
Dates – ¼ cup (pitted and chopped)
Cashew nut – ¾ to 1 cup (chopped)
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Pineapple essence -1 tsp (optional)
Orange -1 (Grate the rind from one whole orange and juice from ½ of the orange and keep aside)
Lemon -1(Grate the rind and take juice from lemon and keep aside)

Rum or Brandy - ¾ cup (optional) for soaking dry fruits

For spice mix:

Cinnamon – 1 medium stick
Cloves- 10 pieces
Dry ginger – 2 small pieces

For the caramel:

¾ cup Sugar
½ cup Water

Directions

Soak the fruits in Rum or Brandy preferably in a dry bottle for minimum three days to one week before baking the cake.

To caramailse the sugar:

Take a dry pan; melt the sugar in slow flame till it reaches dark brown colour. Now add water to the caramel; give a thorough mix and switch off the gas. Keep aside.

Flour mix:

Powder all the spices in a mixer and add it to the flour. (Add one table spoon flour to the spices to  ground into fine powder) .

Sieve together spice powders, all purpose flour and baking powder and keep aside. Drain the soaked sultanas, raisins from Rum / Brandy and mix in flour mixture along with cashew nuts .

(This will prevent the dry fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake)

Cake batter preparation:

Beat sugar and butter till it becomes fluffy and light.

Add eggs one by one and beat it thoroughly. Then add vanilla essence, pineapple essence, orange peel and juice, lemon peel and juice and cooled caramel sauce with drained alcohol(Rum or Brandy).

Fold in the flour and fruit mixture into the wet ingredients; use the spatula to mix evenly.

Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan, and bake at 160 deg. C for 50 to 60 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Once done, remove the cake from the oven and and allow it cool .

Dust with icing sugar. Then slice and serve (tastes better the next day after baking)!

Note:

For non-alchololic version, omit the soaking process and follow the procedure.