Christmas Plum Cake🎄

This holiday season is different than every other because we’ll be staying at home celebrating with our family and close friends. So why not make it a little more special by baking with and for your loved ones? And you know what! Nothing says Christmas better than a good old Plum Cake. Here’s a recipe for soaking dry fruits and baking an eggless cake with it.

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INGREDIENTS-

For soaking the dry fruits-

1. Dried figs - 10 pieces or 100gms

2. Seedless dates - 10-12 pieces or 100gms

3. Apricots - 10 pcs or 50gms

4. Mixed raisins - 100gms

5. Mixed tooty fruity - 100gms

6. Mixed berries (dried blueberries,cranberries, raspberry or strawberry) - 150-200gms

7. Grape/Orange juice - 200ml

These dry fruits can be used to make 4-6 cakes depending on the quantity you want to add in the cakes.

For the cake sponge-

1. Butter - 100gms (Amul butter stick)

2. Brown sugar/powdered white sugar - 150gms

3. Milk - 2 tbsp

4. All purpose flour - 150gms

5. Almond flour (ground almonds) - 50gms

6. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

7. Baking powder - 1 Tsp

8. Yogurt/ Curd - 200gms

9. Cinnamon powder - 1/4 Tsp

10. Soaked dry fruits - 1 Cup

11. Pistachios - 2 Tbsp chopped

12. Cherries- 1 tbsp chopped

13. Walnuts - 4 walnut halves chopped

14. Coloured orange peel - 1 Tbsp (optional)

Cherries are the ones used in paans. You get orange peel in kirana stores, if not available you can skip it. Also, the quantity of soaked dry fruits depend on you. There is no specific quantity as to how much can be added.

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PROCESS-

Soaking the dry fruits-

Mix all the dry fruits in a large bowl. Mix everything well and then add grape/orange juice. Mix it well. Fill in a glass jar and shake the jar. Store it for minimum 8 hours to maximum 1 month. If storing it for a long time shake the jar everyday. Your soaked dry fruits are ready.

If you want to use them immediately, you can do that too. But at least let them soak for an hour.

Making the cake-

The first step is to preheat the oven at 170 degrees C for 10 mins.

Now take a large mixing bowl and cream the butter and brown sugar together. Beat them together until nice and fluffy.

You can use normal white powdered sugar. Brown sugar helps in making a moist cake.

Now add 2 tbsp milk and beat it again. Seive the dry ingredients- Almond flour, maida, baking soda and baking powder.

Almond flour is made by grinding almonds into powder. If you grind almonds too much it can easily turn into paste.

Add these dry ingredients into the butter and sugar mixture. Also add the cinnamon powder.

Now using cut and fold try to mix the ingredients together. It will be difficult because the batter will be really thick. Now at this point add the curd to the batter.

You can use hung curd or normal curd. Anything is fine. Just avoid very watery curd.

Now fold the batter and mix everything really well. No lumps should be there.

Add your soaked dry fruits, pistachios, cherry and orange peel.

Optional to add almonds and cashews. You can add any dry fruit to this cake.

Mix it well and pour the batter in a cake tin.

Bake it at 170 degrees C for about 45-50 mins or until the toothpick comes clean. Cut it into pieces and enjoy this delicious cake😍❤️

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