Sunday, January 13, 2013

Fruit cake or Plum cake

Plum cake or Fruit cake



Ok this one happens to be my sister's favorite cake and back home in India we used to get this all the time during Christmas celebrations (of course it happened to be her bday too!).  This cake brings back so many memories of those wonderful funfilled childhood days and all the cakes we used to eat from Aruna, Lydia's house and Enoch uncle's house.  I tried making this a couple of times last year and didnt succeed, but I didnt give up. Finally, I used the following recipe that I got from my friends Hannah and Joshua.

Ingredients

Raisins (Onakka munthiri) -1cup
Golden raisins--1/2cup
Candied fruits  - 2 cups
Cashews - 1 cups
Allpurposeflour - 4 cups
Baking powder - 3 tsp
Butter - 1 lb
Sugar- 4 cups
Sugar- 1 cup (to make caramelized syrup)
Eggs- 8 nos
Salt- 3 tsp
Pure Vanilla essence - 4 tsp

DIRECTIONS



  • Dice or crush the nuts into small pieces.
  • Place the eggs and butter at room temperature the night before you make the cake.
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.
  • Measure and keep ready the flour, sugar and the flavorings.
  • To make the caramel, use a white enameled pot, if you have one. The light surface will help to see exactly the caramelizing process. If you don¦t have one, use a medium saucepan.
  • Place 1 cup of sugar in the saucepan and add 2 tbsp of water.
  • Turn the stove to high and place the pan on the stove and let it boil.
  • Dont stir the contents at all. As sugar melts and caramelizes, you may swirl the pan a bit once or twice.
  • Within 7 - 10 mins, a cherry wood colored caramel forms.
  • Immediately, remove the pan from the stove and very carefully add 1 cup of water to the caramel.
  • You may hold the pan above the sink and slowly add the water, for it may splash.
  • Stir the contents well to dissolve the caramel. Keep this aside.
  • Sift flour and baking powder and salt, a couple of times and keep ready.
  • In a large container, whisk butter first and then add 4 cups of sugar and whisk again, until it is creamy.
  • Add eggs and whisk well.
  • Pour in the caramel syrup, and vanilla extract and mix everything together.
  • Add the flour-baking powder mix and fold this in with a wooden or plastic spatula or spoon.
  • When they are well mixed, add the candied fruits and nuts and mix again.
  • Spoon this into a 10 inch non stick loaf pans.
  • Bake for 1 hour at 350 degree F.
  • You may line the pan with parchment paper or brown paper.
  • Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the middle of the pan. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done. If not, bake for another 10 - 15 mins and check again.
  • Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a cooling rake.
  • Remove the cake from the pan only after it is allowed to cool completely.
  • Before storing, cover the cake completely with wax paper first and then with aluminum foil and keep in the refrigerator.

This recipe is sourced from Pachakam.com with a lot of tweaks to suit my palate.


Curry-n-spice- tips:


  • I halved the recipe as that it by itself was a lot of cake!
  • I did not of course use any alcohol(no brandy or rum)
  • I did not use any of the spice powders (nutmeg, cinnamon,clove, dry ginger powder)
  • Per my friends suggestion I used 4 eggs (they used 8 eggs instead of 12 stated in the recipe so I just halved that)
  • I used the fruit cake mix from walmart (it covers all the fruits that you have to slice and dice)
  • Used crushed cashews, black raisins, golden raisins, crushed almonds
  • Another friend of mine told me that if the vanilla essence is not right, then the cake tastes more eggy...so make sure you add the right amount of vanilla essence.  In this recipe since we halved it, it will be 2 tsp (could add 2 1/2 tsp if  need be)
  • Used a stainless steel saucepan for the caramel making
  • Make sure you test the temperature of your oven before you bake as the settings might not be the same for every oven.

No comments:

Post a Comment