Christmas Cake

We got interested in baking ages ago; and a decade ago in the North East we got into bread making, as getting a decent bread meant a journey to the closest city around an hour's drive.

Somewhere in between we experimented with Christmas cakes and through trial and error came upon this great recipe. We don't claim it as ours.

The prep for this cake started a year ago, again by default, when we had some soaked dry fruits left over from last year, not enough for a fresh cake, but still enough left for me to add some more dry fruits and brandy in the hope of making it in Jan last year. But that was not meant to be and we had well soaked dry fruits matured over a year ready for this year's cake.

Our tip - start at least a month in advance for soaking the dry fruits. And make the cake at least 2-3 days before consumption.

Ingredients

1/3 cup Prunes 

3 cup raisins/munnacca/ sultanas/currants

1 1/2 cups glace cherries (karonda cherries)

1 cup mixed peel

2 cups walnuts

1/2 cup sweet sherry/ sweet port wine

1/2 cup brandy

125g unsalted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tbsp instant coffee

1/4 cup hot water

1/4 cup plum jam

1 cup flour

3/4 cups self raising flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp mixed spice /garam masala

1/2 tsp nutmeg (grated/ground)

Method

Combine all the dry fruits except the walnuts, soak in the sherry/wine + brandy. Soak for as long as you can. Minimum one day.

Drain the dry fruits from the syrup just before making the cake. Keep syrup aside for soaking subsequently.

Cream butter and sugar till combined. Add eggs one at a time and beat only until combined between each addition. 

In another bowl combine coffee, hot water and jam.

Transfer to a large bowl, stir in the combined coffee, water and jam mixture. Then add the dry ingredients in two batches, while combining.

Add the drained dry fruits & walnuts to the cake mixture.

Grease a 23cm round cake tin with 3 layers of paper (don't skimp as the cake will be in the tin for atleast one day)

Spread the cake mixture into the tin (it's pretty dense but don't worry)

Bake in a slow oven (160°C )for about 2 hours.

Brush the left over syrup over the hot cake and then let cool in the cake tin itself.

Our tip - Every day brush with around one tbsp of Brandy and keep.

The cake in north Indian winters should stay for a couple of months (highly unlikely in our place as it gets consumed pretty fast).

Our tip- it tastes great with coffee, tea, hot chocolate and mulled wine (recipe coming soon)