PLUm Cake – Kerala Style 

 

 
Kerala Style Plum Cake is one cake that I don’t ever experiment with and bake it every single year. Baking the cake a month or couple in advance enriches its taste. Feeding it with rum till Xmas makes it boozy, rich, dark. And the whole process takes it to a different level. Made this Plum Cake a month in advance and now cutting it to welcome the New Years.

 

 

Get all your ingredients ready.Make sure all the ingredients are in room temperature.

*For detailed recipe follow this link
http://madaboutkitchen.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/christmas-cake/

 

Ingredients for the Cake

100 gms – Unsalted Butter
125 gms – Clarified butter /Ghee
300 gms -Powdered Sugar /Castor sugar
600 gms – Soaked dry fruits
4 nos – Egg yolks

1 tsp – Vanilla essence
3 tbsp – Candied orange peel
1/4 cup – Caramel syrup
1 no – Orange

250 gms – All purpose flour/ Maida
1/2 tsp – Baking powder
1/4 tsp – Baking soda
2 tsp – All spice powder (1 tsp cinnamon powder+1/4 tsp nutmeg powder+1/4 tsp clove powder + 1/2 tsp dry ginger powder)
1/4 cup – Milk

4 nos – Egg white
3 tbsp – Limejuice
4 tbsp – Granulated Sugar
*2 extra oranges if you are doing a non alcoholic version.

  

Preparation
.Line a 9″ tin with grease proof paper.
.Drain the soaked dry fruits . Set the soaked rum back in the bottle for later use. Take these dry fruits and the juice of the orange in a sauce pan and cover it snd cook it till all the juice is absorbed.
(*People who do not want soak the dry fruits in rum. Soak the dry fruits in the orange juice (3 nos) overnight or for as a couple of hours atleast. And then cook it in the same juice till all the juices are absorbed. And for people who did not soak the dry fruits for some reason and do not mind using rum, soak and boil in half and half rum and orange juice)
Spread the cooked dry fruits on a plate and let it cool completely.
.Sieve together all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and all spice powder. Toss the steamed cooled mixed fruits in the flour-mix well in a large bowl, so that the fruit is completely coated. Keep aside. (Tossing fruits in flour is to avoid fruits falling to the bottom of the cake during baking time)

  

Method

Pre heat the oven to 160°C

Cream butter, ghee and sugar; add egg yolks one by one and beat in. Then add vanilla essence, chopped orange peels, caramel syrup and beat well. Till the mixture looks creamy and silky.

Add flour-fruits mix slowly alternating with milk to the cream mixture, beginning and ending with flour-fruit mixture. Stir well with spatula to blend uniformly.
Beat egg whites till stiff add 4 tbsp sugar and limejuice and beat again. Fold in egg whites in to the cake mixture.

Pour cake batter in to prepared pan. Smoothen it well (If you like an uneven top, like how you see in my cake, save a small handful of floured dry fruits and sprinkle it on top or You can arrange some blanched and peeled almonds in a pattern or you can sprinkle some dried cherries on top )

Bake for about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4hours or till a wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Keep checking after an hour as it will vary from oven to oven.

Remove it and let it sit in the cake tin. When the cake is still warm pour 1/8th cup rum or brandy over the cake and remove from the tin and cool it over a cooling rack.

Soaking and Storing

  

Once the cake completely, when i say completely, it means completely ( i know some of my friends will be in a hurry ?) sprinkle some more alcohol cover it tightly with clingfilm and wrap it up in aluminium foil or brown paper and store it in a dark cool place. Feed the cake some alcohol once in 4 days or a week.
If you do not want to keep it out, refrigerate it, just clingfilmed and thaw it a day before christmas.

 

I might just dust it with icing sugar the day i want to serve or you could brush some orange jam over the cake too..

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