Christmas is just knocking the door. Its time to welcome Santa. Without Christmas cake, Christmas can't be completed. We have soaked dry fruit in rum in last month and now it is more than a month. So as I promised you last month, Here is my Christmas Rum fruit & nut cake recipe. Good Christmas cake will be moist & soft, densely packed, dark brown in color with a nice aroma. Its a rich cake with evenly distributed fruits and nuts.This cake batter will be denser than any normal cake and it has to be baked slowly at low temperature. After baking the cake you should mature the cake by feeding with rum(or which you have used for dry fruit soaking) until Christmas. It will keep your cake moist and make more flavorful. Alcohol also act as a preservative. So, you can store this cake for few weeks to one month in this way. Lets bake the cake.
Preparation Time:30 minutes
Cook Time: 2.5 Hours
Serves: 10 people
Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour : 225 gram
Salted Butter(Softened at room temperature) : 225 gram
Brown Sugar : 225 gram
Eggs : 3 pieces
Finely Ground Almonds : 3/4 cup
Baking Powder :1 teaspoon
Glazed Cherry : 100 gram
Nutmeg Powder : 1 teaspoon
Clove Powder : 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon Powder : 1.5 teaspoon
Soaked Dry Fruits
Zest of one Lemon
Nuts (Almonds, Walnuts, Cashew Nuts, Pistachios) : 1 cup
Zest of one Orange
Orange Juice : 1/4 cup
Icing sugar for garnishing
Rum for cake feeding(Here I have used leftover rum from dry fruit)
How to Make:
Chop the Cashew Nuts, Almonds & Pistachio into small pieces.
Grate the Orange skin (Don't grate the white bitter part).
Grate the Lemon skin (Grate only the yellow part).
Take Butter(softened at room temperature) in a large Mixing Bowl.
Add Brown Sugar in it.
Beat it until it's creamy using a electric beater or hand whisk.
Add the eggs now one by one.
Beat it again until it become smooth.
Sift the flour, baking powder, spices & ground almonds into the mixing bowl.
Mix everything well with a spatula using cut and fold method. From this stage don't use any beater because if you use beater in this stage your cake will not be fluffy, moist and soft.
Add All Zest & Chopped Nuts now. Mix once.
Add Rum soaked dry fruits and Orange juice.
Mix gently until everything mixed well.
Line the baking tin (18 cm springform pan) with baking paper (Leave extra baking paper towards the top, It will help to bake cake uniformly).
Pour the batter into the baking tin.
Tap the baking tin at the end so that the batter set properly.
Now put some cherries on top.
Bake it in a preheated oven at 160°C for 2.5 hours.
Once done take out the cake from oven.
Check it inserting a Skewer in it and if it comes out clean then baked completely.
Let the cake cool completely in tin.
Then take out the cake from the pan.
Poke some holes for cake feeding with Rum.
Do this once in a week.
It will keep your cake moist and make more flavorful.
You can wrap it with paper and store it like this for few weeks.
Before cutting the cake sprinkle some Icing sugar from top.
Put some cherries on top.
Enjoy the cake in Christmas and new years day.
My Tip:
Here I have used leftover Rum from soaked dry fruits for cake feeding. If your fruit absorb all the alcohol then use extra for feeding.
You can use any baking tin (in different shape) as per your choice. You can bake cake in a loaf tin also.
If you don't have baking paper you can grease tin with butter and then sprinkle some flour in it. It will give you the non-stick effects.
Here I have used four types of nut only. But more types of nuts can be added.
Don't try to bake it fast at high heat. Because this cake batter is denser than any normal cake. So, If you bake at high heat outside of the cake will be done faster but inside will be undone. So bake slowly at low heat.
Every oven is different, so check it and bake until the skewer comes out clean.
This can be served with tea, coffee, or mulled wine.
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