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Christmas Fruit Cake | No Alcohol | Eggless

Christams fruits cake, needs no introduction, loaded with dry fruits soaked in orange juice and flavored with warm spices. The best bake one can do during festivites.
Course Dessert, Festival, Festive
Cuisine Indian, International
Keyword Christmas cake, christmas fruit cake, Dry fruits cake, Eggless fruit cake, Fruit cake recipe, No alcohol fruit cake
Prep Time 3 days
Cook Time 1 hour
resting time 30 minutes
Total Time 3 days 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 8
Calories

Equipment

  • Convection oven
  • Bowls
  • Spatula
  • Baking pan
  • Measuring cups and spoons

Ingredients

Cake batter

  • 2 & ½ cups Whole wheat flour i used normal chapathi aata
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup brown sugar preferably dark brown sugar (pls see notes)
  • ¾ cup oil i used sunflower oil
  • 1 cup buttermilk you can also use ½ cup yogurt and ½ cup water

Dry fruits & nuts soaking

  • 1 cup fresh orange juice juice from 6-7 nos fresh oranges
  • ¼ cup chopped almonds
  • ¼ cup silvered pistachios
  • ¼ cup chopped macademia nuts
  • ¼ cuo chopped cashewnuts
  • ¼ cup raisins
  • ¼ cup cranberries
  • ¼ cup chopped dried pineapple
  • ¼ cup choppped dried mango
  • 3 nos dried figs, chopped into chunks
  • 2 tablespoon candied ginger
  • 10 nos glazed cherries

The Spices

  • 1 inch cinnamon stick
  • 4-5 nos cloves
  • 4-5 nos cardamom, seeds only
  • ½ teaspoon dried ginger powder

Instructions

Let us soak the fruits

  • Squeeze around 6-7 oranges to get 1 cup of juice, you might get another ¼ cup extra, which you can gulp after the hard work of chopping and soaking.
  • Take all the fruits mentioned above.I have chopped almonds and cahewnuts into 3 pieces each, macademias into halves.
  • Take all the chopped dried fruits and nuts in a glass container, add the orange juice to it. Mix well, cover it with a lid and refrigerate until you make your cake or atleast a minimum of 24 hours and maximum 3 days.

Spice powder

  • Take all ingredients mentioned under 'Spices" in a spice grinder and grind it to a fine powder. I used my mortar-pestle and hand pounded to a almost fine powder.

Let us make the Fruit Cake

  • On the day of making the cake, remove this soaking fruits from the refrigerator and keep it on the counter an hour ahead of baking.
  • Preheat the oven to 170C and prepare two, 5 inch cake pans, line it with parchement paper or grease it with oil and dust it with flour. I used two, 5 inch pans and one 4 inch pan and got totally 3 medium sized cakes.
  • In a large bowl, sift together, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda. Sifting the dry ingredients is important to get a uniform flour mix and also a airy and light flour that gives a soft and fluffy cake.
  • Add the spice powder and brown sugar to the flour mix and mix well to get a uniform mix
  • In another bowl, take oil, buttermilk and tip in all the soaked fruits with its juice, add ¼ cup of water to the container, mix and pour that water too in to this wet ingredients. Whisk well using a balloon whisk.
  • Now, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 batches and using a spatuala mix to form a smooth batter. Do not mix vigorously, mix in single direction,gently.
  • Divide the batter amongst the prepared pans, tap the pans twice to release any air.
  • Bake the cakes in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  • Remove the cakes from the oven, let it sit for 5 minutes in the pan. Then using a blunt knife slowly loosen the sides of the cake from the pan, unmould the cake onto the wire rack and let it cool completely. Slice and enjoy.
  • Wrap the fruit cakes in a cling wrap and let it sit on the counter for a day. If more than one day i usually refrigerate the cake and warm it for 20 seconds before serving

Notes

  • Sifting/whsiking the dry ingredients together helps to get a homogenous flour mix and creates a lightness in the dense flour mix. If you are a beginner to baking, i recommed using a flour sifter to do this. A whisk also works well
  • Do not beat the batter vigorously. Use gentle cut and fold method.
  • If you are beginner to baking , i recommend lining your pan with parchment paper after greasing it. This helps to keep the loaf intact without sticking to the pan.
  • Baking time varies from oven to oven. Microwave convection oven, takes a longer time than a stand lone gas oven/electric oven. So baking according to your oven.
  • Resting time is very important to remove the cake intact from the pan. So have patience.
  • Allow the cake to cool well before slicing it, to get a proper slice.
  • For a deep amber color, use ½ cup of palm jaggery syurp and ¾ cup of sugar in the above recipe or you can also add caramel to get a deep color.