Festive Christmas Fruit Cake- 2019!

Hello everyone!

Gosh, It’s almost Christmas. It’s such a joy to see all the houses in our neighborhood as well as the ones which are on my bus route, all decked up in twinkling yellow and blue lights. The stunning trees in the windows, reindeer decorations in the lawns, Christmas carols in the shops and the maddening rush in the mall thanks to last minute shoppers… it truly puts you in the festive mood.

Eventhough me and my family aren’t Catholics, hubby and I absolutely love this holiday. We have an artificial tree which is going strong at 3 years now and our balcony is lit up with bright strings of light as if its DIWALI, the Indian festival of lights that we celebrate back home. I am extremely excited this year as we are hosting our friends for a traditional Christmas dinner on the 25th evening. I am both nervous and thrilled!

Another Christmas tradition that I started a few years ago was – making my Rum-laden fruitcake a week before Christmas.

I don’t even remember how and why I made my first Christmas fruit cake but now I can’t imagine not making it every year. I love every stage of preparing and baking this gorgeous, festive cake. I am happy to report that this year’s cake turned out well, and has already been distributed to our various neighbors’ houses.

It is not a difficult cake to bake per se, but there are a lot of ingredients involved. You can customize the recipe as per your convenience as there are many ways of making it across the world. I keep on changing my recipe every year as well. You can also substitute Rum for Brandy, if latter is your preferred choice of alcohol in general.

Before sharing the recipe, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas! This Christmas, may you have the fulfillment of seeing around you
the people you love and treasure the most. Have loads of fun! (..and food.)

Here’s the recipe for my Rum cake/Christmas fruit cake for all of you. Give it a go, and enjoy! xx

Ingredients:

200 grams unsalted Butter

200 grams soft Brown Sugar

1 tbsn Black Treacle

5 Eggs

225 grams Plain flour

1 tsp Mixed Spice

1 tsp ground Cinnamon

50 grams Ground Almonds

100 grams Chopped Walnuts

Rind of 1 Lemon

Rind and juice of 1 Orange

600 grams of Mixed dried fruit of your choice (raisins, sultanas, cranberries, prunes, cherries)

400 ml Captain morgan’s Rum

1.5 tsp Baking powder

9″ Round cake tin

Method:

A few days before making the cake, soak the dried fruit in rum in an air-tight glass container. Keep shaking it every few hours.

On the day of baking the cake, drain the fruit and preserve the rum.

Line and grease the cake tin. Pre-heat the oven to 120 degrees C.

Grate the lemon and orange rind and take out the juice. Chop the walnuts.

Sieve the flour and the spices and mix together well.

Cream the Butter and Sugar until light and fluffy.

Add a little of eggs and little of flour and mix well. Repeat until all the eggs and flour are nicely incorporated.

Add the fruit, ground almonds, rinds, juice, treacle, nuts, baking powder and 2 tbsn of the preserved Rum. Mix well.

Turn the thick batter into the cake tin and bake for three hours,or until the skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Allow to cool before cutting, and enjoy!