Fruit Cake | Christmas Cake

Fruit cake is a rich dense cake packed with dry fruits and nuts flavored with spices usually made during Christmas. The flavours of the spices and the richness of fruits, nuts and caramel gives the cake a brilliant taste. It is one of the most loved cake, especially during Christmas time.

In this recipe, I will show you how to make a fruit cake without soaking the fruits in advance. I cook the fruit mix in red wine on a low flame until the fruits absorb all the wine and become soft. Nuts are added later, so that they will not become soggy. If you don’t like red wine, you could use fruit juice.

If you want a boozy cake, you can feed your cake by poking with skewers to make small holes and pour small amount of rum/ wine/brandy over the cake.

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How to make Fruit Cake

What you’ll need

Plain Flour – 1 cup
Walnuts (chopped) – 1/4 cup
Cashew Nuts (chopped) – 1/4 cup
Dry Fruit Mix – 1 cup
Sugar – 1/2 cup
Brown/White Sugar – 3/4 cup
Unsalted Butter (Softened) – 150 gm / Oil – 80ml
Eggs – 3
Spice Powder – 2 tsp
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp
Red Wine/Orange Juice – 1 cup
Lemon & Orange Zest – 1 tsp
Salt – 2 pinches
Water – 1/4 cup

Tips

To make the spice mix, grind 5 cardamom, 2 inch cinnamon, 4 cloves. Mix 1/4 tsp of nutmeg powder.
If you want, you can replace 150gm of butter with 80ml of oil. If you are using oil, make sure you beat 3 eggs and sugar first, then add oil.
While making the caramel, after adding 1/4 cup of water you need the melt the caramelized sugar completely. If you feel you need to add more water just add 3 tbsp. Do not add too much water.

How to cook it

Let us make the caramel for the cake. Melt 1/2 cup of sugar in a saucepan at low-medium temperature.
Rotate the saucepan to mix the sugar instead of using a spoon.
3. Once the sugar is melted completely, add 1/4 cup of water.
Once the caramelized sugar is dissolved, take it off from the pan.
Now, let us cook the fruit mix in wine. Add 1 cup of dry fruits and 1 cup of red wine into a pan.
Stir them in between. Let the dry fruits soak all the wine.
Once the mixture is dry, take it off from the stove and let it cool down.
Once it is cooled, add chopped walnuts, cashews and 1 1/2 tbsp of plain flour and mix. This will prevent dry fruits from sinking into the batter while baking.
Grease 8 inch baking tin with butter, dust it with plain flour.
Line the baking tin with parchment paper. Make sure to preheat the oven at 170°C.
Sift 1 cup of plain flour, 2 pinches of salt, 1 tsp of baking powder and 2 tsp of spice powder into a bowl and mix. Keep it aside.
Add 150 gm of softened butter and 3/4 cup of sugar into another bowl and beat it for 2 minutes till it is pale in color. Scrape off the sides in between.
Add 1 egg at a time and beat for 15 seconds. Do the same with another 2 eggs.
Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence and beat it.
Add 1 tsp of orange and lemon zest.
Add the sifted dry ingredients and mix slowly with the blender once they are mixed switch on the blender and beat it for just 2 seconds.
Add the cooled caramel and beat it for 2 seconds.
Scrape off the sides and mix.
Add the dry fruits mixture (sift the dry fruits before adding to the batter to avoid extra plain flour). Keep aside 2 tbsp of dry fruits to add on top of the cake batter.
Fold them gently into the batter.
Pour the batter into the greased baking tin and level it.
Swirl and tap to remove the air bubbles.
Add the remaining 2 tbsp of tossed fruits and level it to make sure it is coated with batter.
Take a clean dampen kitchen towel and wrap it around the baking tin and secure them tightly with safety pins. This will help to get a flat cake top.
Bake it in a preheated oven at 170°C for 1 hour.
After 50 mins, check if the cake is baked well using a skewer or knife.
Once the cake is baked well, take it out from the oven and place it on a cooling rack.
After 10 mins, gently run a knife around the edges of the baking tin and then unlock it.
Flip it and remove the parchment paper.
Fruit cake is ready to serve.