Christmas plum cake recipe

plum cake
Prepration time: 2 Hour
Persons served: 10 Persons
Cuisine: Kerala

ingredients

  • For Soaking
  • Mixed fruits i.e.
  • Dates
  • Figs
  • Cherries
  • Ginger peel
  • Orange peel
  • Tutty fruity
  • Black raisins
  • Yellow raisins
  • Almonds
  • Walnuts
  • Cashew nuts etc altogether – 3 cups
  • Rum/Brandy – 1.5 cups
  • For Caramel
  • Sugar – ½ cup
  • Water – 1 tbsp
  • Warm water – 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
  • For Cake
  • Plain flour (maida) – 2 cups
  • Baking powder – 1¼ tsp
  • Baking soda – ½ tsp
  • Sugar – 1 cup+ 2 tbsp
  • Unsalted Butter – 200 gms @ room temperature
  • Eggs – 4 @ room temperature
  • Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
  • Apricot Jam – 1 Tbsp
  • For Spice Powder
  • Cloves – 2
  • Cardamom – 2
  • Cinnamon – a small piece
  • Nutmeg – a small piece

Plum cake preparation

  1. Soaking of Fruits:
    Wash and Soak all the dry fruits properly and leave in sunlight a whole day to dry up.
    Chop washed and dried fruits and nuts and fill in a glass jar.
    Add brandy/rum in this and keep for 3 weeks. Try to soak it for a minimum of 1 week, at least.
    Shake the jar of soaked fruits once in a while.
  2. Caramel Preparation:
    Combine ½ cup sugar and 1 tbsp water in a sauce pan.
    Heat it & let the sugar melt. When the color of the melted sugar becomes dark brown, remove the pan from fire and add 1/2 cup warm water to this. You need to be very careful at this stage since the water tends to splash and can cause burns.
    Bring it back to the heat and boil for 3-4 minutes.
    Remove from fire and let it cool completely.
  3. Spice Powder:
    Grind all the spices with a pinch of sugar, to a fine powder & keep aside.
  4. Cake Preparation:
    Preheat the oven at 180 C for 10-15 mins, before baking.
    Drain the soaked fruits and keep aside. Retain 4 tbsp from the drained liquor.
    Toss the drained fruits in 2 or 3 table spoon of maida (All purpose flour). (This will prevent the fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake).
    Sift the plain flour with baking powder and baking soda.
    Powder the sugar and keep aside.
    Separate the yolks and white of the eggs.
    Beat the egg yolks and add the softened butter to it. Beat it till it forms a smooth paste.
    Add powdered sugar to this, gradually. Beat after each addition.
    When it becomes smooth add vanilla essence and cooled caramel, spice powder and jam. Beat again.
    Add the sifted flour in 2 batches.
    Add the drained liquor. Beat after each addition.
    Now clean the blades of the blender and wipe neatly. (Not even a drop of water is allowed while beating egg white).
    Beat egg whites till soft peaks form.
    Fold the fluffy egg white into the batter very gently. Make it two three parts and fold accordingly.
    Then fold in the soaked and coated fruits. (Do this part very carefully, do not mix for too long, Just two or three folding is enough for the dry fruits just to disappear in the batter).
    Grease the baking dish and line with baking paper.
    Pour the batter into the prepared tins.
    Bake in the pre heated oven for 40-45 minutes or until the skewer inserted comes out clean. The baking time can vary depending on the oven and also the size of the tin used.

Alcohol free version of plum cakes:

Soak 3 cups of fruits in 1.5 cups of fresh orange juice. Leave it overnight at room temp. The rest of the recipe is same.

Using this recipe, I have got 1 Kg and 350 grams of plum cake. I adapted this recipe from mariasmenu. Thanks maria for such a lovely and yummy recipe.

Athira Sooraj

How would you rate this recipe?

239 votes, 3.70 / 5.00 (73%)
    • says:

      @Ann : Instructions for alcohol free plum cake is also available:)

    • says:

      You can use Maida instead of Rum or brandy

    • J
      says:

      The minute we heat to 65 deg and above, alcohol evaporates 100%. Don’t add after baking.

  • says:

    What is the pan size for this cake and how do I reduce it to one kg cake

  • says:

    Tried the recipe turned our very well. Taste was pretty good and very close to what we used to have in Kerala.
    I used an 8 by 8 inch pan. Also added fresh orange+lemon peel(cooked with sugar and the added some water and boiled again and mixed with rest of the fruits.)

  • G
    says:

    hey,
    lovely recipe, but i have a question. When i soak the dry fruits in rum or brandy, i need to soak it for 3 weeks, right ? then do i need to soak the same in orange juice for only over night ?

    • says:

      Hi Geeta,
      You don’t need to soak it again in orange juice. You can either soak it in rum / bandy for 3 weeks or can soak in orange juice overnight and bake next day.

    • says:

      If you do not want soak in rum or brandy……you can use dry Maida instead of rum or brandy.

  • R
    says:

    Thank you for this wonderful recipe. The cake tasted very yummy. but my caramel turned bitter when i tried it make more brown. how come I make the perfect caramel sweet and brown?

  • G
    says:

    Would it be fine to use brown sugar instead of caramel?

  • N
    says:

    what is your one cup measurement?

    • says:

      @Nikita: 1 cup usually measure 120g.

  • N
    says:

    Used this recipe.. Awesome cake, super moist and super rummy!! I just replaced sugar with brown sugar to give more
    Color..

  • says:

    I tried this recipe turned out very well and taste was very good thanks for the recipe

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