What is  Fruit Cake

Fruitcake is a bread-like cake made with candied or dried fruits, nuts, and spices. The fruit and the cake itself are traditionally soaked in liquor. The sweet treat is usually served (and also gifted) during Christmas or  holidays. Since it’s doused in liquor,  fruitcake lasts for months.

About the Recipe

This is a super moist Christmas Fruit Cake. This Fruit Cake is loaded with dry fruits which are soaked in orange juice for a week, super moist and bursting with caramel flavour.

As we don’t consume liquor,  I used fresh orange juice to soak the dried fruits. Using fresh juice make the cake super soft and moist with amazing flavour.

If you use liquor to soak the dried fruits,  the self life of cake increases a lot. But ,you can easily keep my cake for a week in the refrigerator.

Steps to make fruit cake

Though making fruitcake isn’t hard, it is a  bit long  process. You’ll find the full, step-by-step recipe below . Here are the steps to make my version of fruit cake.

1. Soaking the dried fruits in fresh juice.

We have to soak the dried or candied fruits in fresh Orange juice and keep it in the refrigerator for a week.

2. Making the Caramel

You have to make Caramel before starting to bake the cake,as the caramel has to be completely cool .

3. Preparing the batter & Baking the cake

This is of course, the most important step to prepare the batter with prepared soaked dry fruits and caramel. This cake is being baked with low temperature for a long time to keep it moist and flavourful.

4. Brushing hot cake with caramel

After baking the cake ,take out the hot cake from oven and brush the top with remaining caramel. This will help to enhance the flavour and texture of the cake.

5. Garnishing the cake

Finally, you garnish the cake with some candied orange rings, cherries and icing sugar.

Detailed recipe

• Preparation time: 20 min
• Baking time: 100 min
• Serves: 16 big pieces

Ingredients for soaked dried fruits

• 1/4 cup dried Cherries
• 1/4 cup dried Pineapple cubes
• 1/4 cup black Raisins
• 1/4 cup dried Apricot
• 1/4 cup Tutti Frutti
• 2 cup fresh Orange juice

Ingredients to make Caramel

• 1 cup granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1 tablespoon Lemon juice

Ingredients to make fruit cake

• 220 grams(1 cup) Sunflower oil
• 220 grams(1 cup)  Brown Sugar
• 4 large Eggs (room temperature)
• 225 grams (1+1/2cup) All Purpose Flour
• 1  tsp Allspice Powder (cinnamon +dry ginger +nutmeg)
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 130 ml(1/2 cup) Caramel(prepared earlier)
• 2 Orange (zest)
• 1 tbsp  Vanilla Essence
• 1 teaspoon Cocoa brown colour(optional)
• 600 g prepared soaked Dry Fruits
• 1/2 cup more  dehydrated fruits
• 1 teaspoon All purpose flour to coat dry fruits

For garnishing

• Icing Sugar
• Cherries
• Caramalized Orange roundals
• Mint leaves
• Cinnamon sticks

Method
For soaking the fruit

Take above mentioned mixed dehydrated fruits and soak them with fresh Orange juice. The fruits should completely soaked in juice.

Cover and keep in the refrigerator for a week.

To make Caramel

Place sugar and water to a heavy bottomed saucepan and place to stove top.

Cook in medium low heat until sugar melts completely and gets amber colour. Also add in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent crystallisation. Swirl the pan in between to cook the syrup evenly.

When you get the desired colour, immediately remove from heat and transfer to a bowl. Let it cool completely.

Making cake batter

Line an round 8” cake pan with butter paper and keep it aside.

Also wrap the sides and bottom of the cake tin with aluminum foil as we have.to bake the cake for long time.

In a large bowl using a hand mixer  beat the 1 cup  oil and 1 cup brown sugar till  fluffy.  This should take approximately 3 minutes at a high speed.

Next add in one egg at a time and mix till just incorporated .  

Also add in vanilla essence ,cocoa colour and salt. Colour is optional, I add  to get a beautiful and rich colour.

In another bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, allspice mix, baking powder and salt.

Now, gradually add in the all-purpose flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix till just combined. 

Add the prepared 1/2 cup of cool caramel and  orange zest , give it a mix.

This is the batter after adding caramel and orange zest.

Take the soaked fruits, add in some more dehydrated fruits and seeds, mix well. Keep.some dry fruts and seeds aside to sprinkle in the top.

Also sprinkle 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour to the mixture and stir well to coat.  This will help to prevent sinking if the fruits to the bottom of the cake.

Now,  add in the fruits to the cake batter and  mix  till the dry fruits and the batter get well combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and level out the batter on the top.

Decorate with more cherries, black raisins, and toasted seeds.

Place the cake in the oven preheated at 130 degrees Centigrade and bake for approximately 1.5 hours or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

When you just take the cake out of the oven brush about 50ml of caramel on the top of the hot cake .

Allow the cake to cool for about 10 minutes before demould.

For garnishing, dust some icing sugar  and place candied orange segments , dry cherries and mint leaves.

You can serve the cake as it is or transfer the cake in airtight container and store in refrigerator for a week.

It cake out very soft and moist with wonderful flavours.

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