Eggless Plum Cake

A popular and flavored fruity cake recipe made with a delicious combination of dry fruits which is made using different fruits and dry fruits. Usually fruits are soaked in alcohol and eggs are used to prepare this cake. Here I have created an egg less and alcohol free version of the same cake which has come out perfectly.

 

 Nothing beats the taste of a cake baked at home filled with lots of dried fruits, nuts, fresh ingredients, and no preservatives. I used a combination of dried cranberries, black & golden raisins, dried apricots and dried figs currants, with walnuts and cashews. I grated the zest of an orange and lemon into the fruit mixture. All these fruits together created real magic in my cake. This cake is rich in flavours and filled with fruit in every bite and sure to win hearts and minds of those around.

 

For The Dry Fruits Mixture:

Ingredients:

Kaale kishmish (black raisins) 50 grams

Bhure kishmish (brown raisins) 50 grams

Dried cranberries 25 grams

Tutti fruity 50 grams

Cherry-50gms

Dates-50 gms

Apricot- 5 gms

Fig-25 gms

Fresh-Orange- juice as required

 

Method:

Use a glass bowl & add all the dried fruits further add orange juice as required so all the fruits are totally submerged in it, now keep it for soaking for at least 7 to 8 hours. Once the fruits are soaked well in the juice, use a sieve and strain the excess orange juice, reserve the orange juice to be used later in making the cake.

For The Caramel Syrup:

Cheeni (sugar)- 100 gm

Water – 1 cup

Method:

Preparing Caramel

In a sauce pan, take the sugar and water.

Mix and stir very well. Keep this pan on the stove top on a low heat. I have used organic unrefined cane sugar but you can use white sugar.

 

 Bring this sugar solution to a boil on a low heat. You will see the mixture bubbling initially.Continue to cook and do keep on stirring often.At one point it might look that the sugar is getting crystallized.

 

Continue to cook and stir frequently till you see the color changing to a dark brown. Switch off at this point.

Remove the pan from the stove top and place it down. Immediately add 1 cup water to the caramel. Be careful while doing so, as the mixture splutters.

The caramel will harden as soon as you pour the water. Keep the saucepan back on the stove top on a low flame. Stir often and bring to a gentle simmer till all the hardened caramel is dissolved. Do stir often so as to aid in dissolving the caramel.

Let this caramel solution cool completely.

Make Spice Mix

Dalchini (cinnamon) powder- ½ tsp

Laung (clove) powder- 1/4th tsp

Saunth (ginger) powder- ½ tsp

In a mortar & pestle, add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and crush to form a fine powder. You can skip this and add ¼ teaspoon cinnamon powder, ⅛ teaspoon each of cloves and cardamom powder.

For making the cake

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

Maida (refined flour) 140 grams / 1 cup

Salt 1/4th tsp

Baking powder ½ tsp

Baking soda 1/8th tsp

Wet ingredients:

Butter- 100 grams

Orange juice- 75 grams

Prepared molasses -50 grams

Condensed milk - 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence- 1 tsp

Badam (almonds) 40 grams

Lemon peel of ½ lemon (grated)

Orange peel of 1/4th orange (grated)

Topping:

Dried cranberries

Tutti fruity

Walnuts

Almonds (slivered)

 

Method:

Take a little big size mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients in sieve & sift well to add it in the bowl, keep it aside.

Further, set a pan or a wok on medium heat, add butter, orange juice, prepared molasses, stir & cook until the butter melts, further bring to a boil.

Now switch off the flame & allow to cool down a little bit, now add the soaked fruits, condensed milk & vanilla essence, stir & mix well. Further add this mixture to the dry ingredients & mix once, further add almonds, orange zest & lemon zest, use cut & fold method to combine the mixture well.

 

As all the ingredients are mixed well, when you check the consistency of the batter, it is little thick as required, to make it a little thin, add the reserved orange juice that was used for soaking the dried fruits, mix well and you’ve got the perfect consistency of the cake batter.

 

Line a loaf tin with butter paper/ grease with butter rectangle loaf tin, you can use a round cake tin as wellPour the batter in the tin and tap it on the counter table so to remove any air pockets in the batter, top it with some dried cranberries, tutti fruity, walnuts & almond slivers, bake it in a preheated oven at 180℃ for 1 hour.

Do not disturb the cake for at least an hour, make sure to check the process of baking keeping the oven doors closed. Check the cake after an hour for its denseness by inserting a toothpick, if it comes out clean your cake is baked to its perfection, there will also be cracks on the top surface and it denotes its baked perfectly, if the toothpick is not clean you need to bake it a little more.

Once baked, carefully take out from the oven and allow it to cool down for few minutes.

 

After cooling down, run a clean knife from the sides and gently pull up the cake, remove the butter paper and your Christmas plum cake is ready.

Slice it and consume accordingly, it can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.