Ani's Kitchen Stories

Here’s an easy and instant Christmas fruit cake that everyone in your family can enjoy. In fact you can enjoy this fruit cake in anytime of the year.

This’s not a traditional Christmas fruit cake which calls for soaking the candies and dry fruits in the alcohol for days and months and feeding the cake with rum or brandy for weeks ahead before being consumed. Of course the traditional fruit cake is delicious, however I’m not much of a fan of dense and overly moist cake. So this quick and easy flavourful fruity cake is for everyone like me who doesn’t like an intensely moist cake and loves enjoying the cake instantly without being overboard with all the preparations ahead of time.

Moreover, unlike the traditional one, it’s a non alcoholic cake which makes kids or everyone in the family can enjoy a slice of it. So let’s bake a Christmas fruit cake at home with the goodness of fruits and nuts and warm spices to make the celebration more worthy among friends and family.

Ingredients for the Fruit Cake:

☑️ Dry fruits and nuts: I’ve used dry apricot, raisins both yellow & black, tutti frutti and cherries all chopped to equal sizes. For the nuts I’ve used Almonds and Cashews chopped. You can use whatever dry fruits you prefer in your Christmas cake.

☑️ Because it’s a non alcoholic fruit cake I’ve used Orange and lime juice to soak the dry fruits.

☑️ For the spice, I’ve used freshly ground Cinnamon and grated nutmeg. The aroma of warm spice in the baking along with the flavour of orange makes it heavenly.

☑️ For the sweetness I’ve used brown sugar which gives the dark brown effect in the cake. You can equally substitute brown sugar with Jaggery powder too.

☑️ Flour I’ve used both all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to feel guilty about indulging ‘Maida,’ all purpose flour which does no good to our body.

So let’s head to the Recipe and further instructions.

Ingredients:

For the Soak

• 3 tbsp yellow raisins

• 3 tbsp black raisins

• 2 tbsp candied cherries

• 4 tbsp tutti frutti

• 2 tbsp dried apricot

• 1/3 cup orange juice

• 1/3 cup water

• 1 tbsp lime juice

• 1 orange peel

For the cake

• 1 cup All purpose flour

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 3 egg

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 3/4 cup brown sugar

• I tsp orange zest

• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla essence

• 3 tbsp chopped almond

• 3 tbsp chopped cashews

Instructions:

☑️ Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius. This fruit cake needs to be slow baked in lower temperature. Line the baking pan with the parchment paper and keep aside.

☑️ In a saucepan, add orange juice, lime juice and water and add rest of the Soak ingredients. In a low to medium flame cook until the all the dry fruits absorb the juices. Turn the flame off and let it cool.

☑️ Now in a separate bowl, whisk egg, brown sugar, oil, orange zest and vanilla essence until well combined.

☑️ Now in the same bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder & baking soda, salt and the spices cinnamon & nutmeg. Gently incorporate the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mix with a cut and fold technique, and do not be tempted to over mix it.

☑️ Add the soaked dry fruits and chopped nuts in the mixture, leaving a bit of soaked dry fruits and nuts for later use. Fold it well to a smooth batter.

☑️ Now pour the cake batter in the lined baking pan and drizzle the rest of the soaked dry fruits and nuts and bake it in 160 degree Celsius for 50 to 60 mins. While baking if you see that the cake is starting to burn on top, cover it with silver foil, this will prevent the cake from burning much.

☑️ When the cake is done and the wooden skewer inserted comes out clean, let it cool on a cooling rack. Before serving dust confectioners sugar on the cake and enjoy.

Note: • Before adding the orange peel to boil, wash & soak the orange in salt, vinegar water for 5 mins. This will wash away all the impurities.

• Also the cake taste better the next day or the day after.