Christmas Cake with Rum

No soaking dry fruits, no eggs, quick, vegetarian and boozy Christmas cake recipe to enjoy the holiday season. Vegan version mentioned as well.

Hello HTS Community

Welcoming holiday season with open arms, lots of booze and a fruity spiced cake. There is no better way. Often the preparations for dried fruits Christmas cake starts months in advance, beginning with soaking the dried fruits in rum, and later ageing the cake and feeding it rum/brandy at regular intervals. The patience definitely pays off.

This cake recipe is simple, does not require any soaking of dried fruits and can be consumed the very day. It will taste very very good and no one will know that we’ve taken a shortcut 😉 . Though I’ve added rum to the cake, you can completely skip to make an alcohol free cake. This is a vegetarian recipe that uses curd and milk in the batter. To make a vegan version, replace curd with flax eggs (details below) and milk with fresh orange juice.

December is here and Christmas is near,

sugar and spice, all things nice.

There are multiple steps that one should follow to make this eggless and rum Christmas cake. Although the use of alcohol is totally your decision, but it does add a layer of flavour and aroma. The steps involve cooking dried fruits in juice and rum, mixing dry ingredients, making a batter, garnishing and then glazing the cake. Another amazing cake recipe that screams holiday season is a Carrot cake. It is lightly sweet, moist and you just cannot stop at one slice.

Cakes such as Tutti Frutti and Pumpkin cake are some of the most popular desserts people consume during this season. The magic lies in the spices that are used in the recipes. The major one is cinnamon, which fills your house with a soothing aroma, and then there is nutmeg, dried ginger and cloves. I usually make pumpkin spice at home and use it year long in my spiced cake recipes.

Ingredients

• Dried fruits
  • Apricots- 1/4 cup, chopped
  • Dates- 1/4 cup, chopped
  • Figs- 1/4 cup, chopped
• Orange juice- 1/4 + 1/4 cup
• Rum or brandy- 1/4 (Optional), use another 1/4 cup of orange juice to replace rum
• Dry Ingredients
  • All purpose flour- 1.5 cup
  • Ground almonds- 1/4 cup
  • Cocoa powder- 1 tablespoon
  • Baking Soda- 1 teaspoon
  • Baking powder- 1 teaspoon
  • Pumpkin spice– 2 teaspoon
  • Salt- a pinch
• Vegetable oil- 1/2 cup (any neutral tasting oil)
• Brown sugar- 1/2 cup
• Curd- 2 tablespoons
• Vanilla extract- 1/2 teaspoon
• Milk- 1/4 cup
• Orange zest- 1 teaspoon
• Garnishes
  • Dried cranberries- 1/4 cup
  • Walnuts- 1/4 cup
• Glaze
  • Any fruit jam- 1 teaspoon
  • Rum/brandy- 1/4 cup

Curd substitute:

For 1/4 cup of curd used, you can substitute it with the following:

• 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed+ 2 tablespoon water

Process of making Christmas Cake:

Step 1: Cooking dried fruits

• In a small saucepan, add chopped apricots, dates and figs, followed by 1/4 cup of fresh orange juice and 1/4 cup of rum or brandy.

• Cook this mixture on low heat for 5-8 minutes until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Switch off the heat and keep the mixture aside to come to room temperature.

Step 2: Dry Ingredients

• Using a sieve, sift together all purpose flour, ground almonds, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin spice and salt. Keep aside.

Step 3: Making the batter

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together oil and sugar, followed by curd. Whisk until all well combined and smooth.

• Add the cooked dried fruits and vanilla extract and mix.

• Time to add our dry ingredients. Fold using a spatula, making sure no flour pockets remain in the batter. To adjust the consistency of the batter, add 1/4 cup of orange juice and mix. If the batter still feels thick, take some milk or more orange juice and add it.

• Transfer batter to a greased and lined baking loaf tin.

Step 4: Garnishing and baking

• Garnish the batter with dried cranberries and walnuts. This is an optional step and you can skip it.

• Bake the cake in a preheated oven at 180 degree celsius for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Because this cake has lots of fruits it takes longer to bake at low temperatures.

Step 5: Glazing

• As soon as you take the cake out of the oven, transfer it to a wire rack and glaze it with a mixture of fruit jam and rum. This will seal all the goodness inside and give a beautiful look to the cake. Let it rest for a couple of hours before cutting.