Fruit Cake

   Cooking along with friends is so much fun...I simply love having someone in my kitchen when I cook so talking and cooking can be done together :). A friend of ours, Ramya, visited us during the long weekend. She often used to make me crave for the fruit cake she made from the blog My treasure My pleasure. We decided to make it together during the weekend. The poor darling brought the dry fruits soaked in rum when she came. We were traveling a lot, and made it the day before she left. We made it in the morning before going for a trip, and both of us forgot to transfer the cake to a cooling rack before we left. And we paid for it! The cake refused to come out of the baking pan and we had a tough time removing it intact. It was midnight and we were so tired, that we just cut it randomly, and still managed to click a few pictures before we finished the whole thing…the trip made us soo hungry too. The cake tasted exactly like the fruit cake(christmas cake) sold in the bakeries in Kerala.
    Thanks to Annita of My treasure my pleasure for this wonderful recipe and Ramya, I had a wonderful time baking with you!

 

Ingredients (For two 8 inch cakes)

1. Fruit Mix - Around 5 cups (You can use dates, cherries, raisins, fruit peels, chopped nuts, candied fruits etc. We used paradise candied fruitcake mix, dried plum prunes and chopped dates.)

2. Brandy or Rum - 1/2 cup

Roughly chop the dry fruits and soak them along with the nuts in the rum/brandy. Keep them in an airtight container for at least 2 weeks at room temperature. The more they are soaked, the tastier the cake will be.

3. All Purpose Flour/Maida – 2 cups
4. Powdered Sugar – 3 cups ( 1 cup for caramelizing sugar)
5. Butter – 250 gms , room temperature ( equals around 1 cup + 2 tbsp butter or 2 sticks + 2 tbsp butter)
6. Baking powder – 2 tsp
7. Eggs – 6
8. Vanilla Essence – 2 tsp

9. Orange juice - 2 tbsp

10. Powdered spices - 3 tsp (1/2 tsp each of Cloves, Cardamom, Nutmeg, Dry Ginger and 1 tsp Cinnamon powder)
11. Salt – A pinch

Method

Caramelizing sugar

1. Heat a medium sized sauce pan with 1 cup sugar and 1 tbsp water. Stir continuously at medium heat.  The sugar will melt first and then gradually becomes a molten syrup. It will then gradually turn to a dark colored caramel syrup as it gets hotter. Now add 1/2 cup water slowly stirring immediately before it crystallizes(Be very careful while doing it since it can splash and cause severe burns). Stir well until it dissolves completely and allow it to cool.

 

2. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

3. Sift together the all purpose flour and baking powder at least 2-3 times.  Now stir in the powdered spices and the drained soaked fruits to the flour. Mix well with a spatula and keep aside.

4. Beat butter and powdered sugar in a mixing bowl, until light and fluffy (you can use a hand mixer). Now add the eggs, one at a time to this beaten butter-sugar mixture, adding a tsp of flour after adding each egg. Beat well.

5.  Now stir in the flour-soaked fruits mixture to the beaten butter-sugar-egg mixture alternatively with the cooled caramel. Stir with a wooden spatula.

6. Lastly add vanilla essence and orange juice. Mix well with a wooden spatula preferably in one direction.

7. Pour the mixture into two 8x8 inch lined or greased, floured baking pans and bake for around 45 mts or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Note that the baking time varies depending on your oven and the type of baking pan you use.Take it out and let it cool for 15 mts and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator if you wish to keep it for long.