Christmas special Dry Fruit Cake

Today being Christmas,  I decided to bake a cake using dry fruits and a cup of red wine.

Ingredients:

1 Bowl each of Raisins, Apricots, FigS, Dates, Mixed peels, and Sultanas

½ bowl of Almonds, ½ bowl of Walnuts.

1 cup of Red wine.

25 gm Butter/2 tbsp Castor sugar (use fine sugar)

225 gm Unsalted Butter

225 sugar: Firmly packed Dark brown Muscovado sugar

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1-2 tsp spice ( I used nutmeg/cinnamon/clove/pepper/cardamom )

250 gm All purpose flour (Maida)

5 eggs.

Method:

1. Chop and combine all the raisins, sultanas, dates, figs, apricots, and mixed fruit in a bowl.
2. Place the castor sugar in a thick sauce-pan over slow heat until sugar melts, add 25 gm butter and 1 cup of wine . Stir it.
3. Add the 225 gm butter, the brown sugar, and the mixed fruits, and stir so all gets mixed, bring to boil and remove from heat.
4. Transfer this into large bowl, stir in the bicarbonate of soda and cover the bowl to let it stand overnight at room temp. (pic#5 show how it looks)
5. Pre-heat the oven to 150 °C (fan assisted). Grease and line the cake tin with parchment.( I used 2 cake tins, different shapes)
6. Beat eggs in a bowl, add the spice to it and then mix it with the fruit mixture. Add the nuts. Fold in the all-purpose flour into the mixture.(pic#6 shows the batter after adding the eggs)
7. Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 1 hour and 30 mins.
8. Cool the cake on wire rack.

Fruit juices can also be used as an option instead of wine. The Muscovado sugar imparts a nice color and flavor to the cake, hence I used it for this cake. I had fun baking it, go ahead and try it out.

.

ashu 🙂