Christmas Plum Cake

Christmas Plum cakes are the best not just because of their taste but because of the beautiful memories of past Christmas'. This cake tasted better after a week of baking it. So plan to bake ahead of time for the best taste.

This is the recipe that I have been following for several years. I should say, the cake is really moist and full of flavor. I make this with fruits and nuts that have been soaking in the wine /spiced rum for almost a year. Well, you don't have to soak it for that long. If you use wine or spiced rum, you would need to soak it at least for 2 weeks. I would think soaking it on the day or the day after Thanksgiving will be a nice tradition to follow. If you don't want to use wine or rum, you may use orange juice, which would need just 2 days of soaking max and not more than that.

Here are some preparation pics :-)

Dates and Figs

 Getting stuff ready :-)

 Figs

 Getting all the nuts, rasins, crasins, etc., ready to be soaked

 Chopped Fig

 Chopped Dates

Fruits and Nuts that  I use for soaking


(I'm not including the quantity as I soak in bulk and make several of these cakes through out the year. So, you can judge how much you would need. You can adjust according to your taste and availability of materials). For a single time baking, you would need 2 cups of these soaked fruits and nuts.

• Almonds - Chopped
• Cashew Nuts - Chopped
• Pecans - Chopped
• Walnuts - chopped
• Dates - Chopped
• Figs - Chopped
• Raisins 
• Cranberry 
• Craisins
• Cherry
• Orange Peels
• Candied Lemon
• Candied Ginger

Spices ( all powdered) needed to bake one time ( you can reduce the amount to suit your taste):

1 tsp Shah jeera

1/4/ tsp cinnamon

1/4 nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 cardamom

Caramel ( This would be the 1st step that I would start with, just so that the caramel can have enough time to settle into room temperature before adding it to the batter)  :

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp water
1/2 cup warm water.


Take the 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1 tbsp of water in a saucepan and start making the caramel on medium flame.
Keep swirling the sauce pan as the sugar is being caramelized. DO NOT stir. Let the sugar be caramelized to the color that you would like for your cake. Remember the darker the caramel, the more bitter it would taste so keep an eye on the caramel to make sure that the caramel is not too dark or burnt. When you get the desired color, switch off the flame after adding the 1/2 cup of warm water. Keep it aside let it become lukewarm before you add it to the batter.

Ingredients  ( all ingredients should be in room temperature):

1 and 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 cup butter at room temperature
1 and 1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg yolks
3 large egg white
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp wine
1 tsp vanilla essence

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F.
2. Preferred pans ( cake tins) would be an 8" and a 6 ". Do not try to fit in all of the batter in a single pan. Fill the batter only till half of the cake tin, to give it enough room to rise.
3. Line the pans with parchment paper.  Grease the pans ( parchment paper) with butter.
4. Sift the flour, spices and the baking powder. Keep it aside
5. Start next with the egg whites.Pour the egg whites into a dry bowl and beat well till soft, smooth shiny peaks are formed. To know whether you have done a good job with beating the egg whites, try to hold the bowl over your head, if nothing drips on your head.... well done !!!  😉 you have done a good job. You have to see soft, shiny peaks.
6. Beat the butter and sugar until very creamy.
7. Add to the creamy mixture, egg yolks one after the other, keep beating as you add them and once this is complete, add the vanilla essence and beat again. To this, add the wine and caramel, and mix well.
8. To the above, add the dry ingredients ( sifted flour, spices, baking powder - save 1 tbsp of flour) little by little and keep beating as you add the dry ingredients.
9. Next, very gently fold in the egg whites and gently give a mix with the spatula till there are no white streaks of egg whites seen in the batter.
10. Take 1 and 1/2 cups of soaked fruits and nuts, and gently fold in to the cake batter.
11. Add this cake batter to the greased cake tins ( I used an 8 " and 6 " cake tins).
12. Add the reserved 1 tbsp of flour to the remaining 1/2 cup of soaked fruits and nuts and give a quick mix and add to the batter in the cake tins. ( This is done so that you would have fruits and nuts on the top of the cake without having everything sunk to the bottom of the cake)

Bake at 350 F for 1 hour, this may vary depending on the oven, test by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake tin and if it comes out clean, you would know the cake is cooked through.

Take the cake off from the pan after 5 mins onto a wire rack. Let it cool. After this cools, I cover the cake with an aluminum foil and put it in an airtight container. I open this once in 3-4 days, add a tbsp of rum to the cake, just to let the flavors sink in and allow the cake to be kept moist.

Happy Baking!