For me ‘Christmas’ equals baking a great ‘Plum Cake’ and if you are looking for a great recipe, here is one!
This plum cake is a dish I always make for Christmas! I had scheduled this post for Xmas before leaving for Pune, as I thought that would be a perfect day to post a plum cake recipe. The only thing I think is that I had scheduled it only in my head 🙁 Apparently I am a bit late to post this, but anyway, here it is with the title changed from Merry Xmas to Plum Cake!
I got the original recipe from here which is an excellent site for baking recipes. I made some changes to the recipe like using rum instead of brandy since neither N or I really like brandy too much. Also, I used Demerara sugar instead of light brown as mentioned in the original recipe. But I must admit, this was a super duper plum cake I made.
The use of orange zest just added that extra taste to the cake and the dried fruits were just perfect to create delicious taste. Plum cakes are always an integral part of any Christmas celebrations. I believe earlier the tradition was to have plum porridge, which soon gave way to dried fruits and spices being added to the porridge and the tradition of Christmas pudding came in place. Eventually, the oatmeal was replaced by wheat flour, butter and eggs and thus was born the tradition of Christmas plum cakes!
And I must admit, these cakes do taste delicious in the cold winter nights! A warm slice of this plum cake with a glass of hot chocolate does sound delicious, doesn’t it?
Also, I love using alcohol in baking. The flavor it imparts to the dish is just so amazing. Like this delicious boozy bread pudding!
Plum Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar Demera
- 3 eggs large
- 4 tbsps rum
- one orange juice and zest
- 3/4 cup ground almonds
- 1 cup walnuts and cashews mixed and chopped
- 650 gm dried fruits I used raisins, dates, prunes
- 2 cups maida
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 160 degrees.
- Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
- Add eggs and beat some more.
- Add the rum, orange juice and zest.
- Fold the almonds, cashews and walnuts and the rest of the dry fruits in it.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder and fold this into the cake batter.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) and continue to bake the cake for another 1 hour 30 minutes or until a long skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs.
- Enjoy!!! It was so yummy that it got over in a day and Ojas digged in it too much! I made one more for him with very very less rum.
hitchy says
Chalo bahut waqt logo ko chance diya !!!!
its time the original champ claimed his No. 1 status !!!!!!!!!
koi yaha aha naache naache… !!!!!! 😛 😛
hitchy says
geez… nvm the recipe but the pic of the cake !!!!!!! I looks AWESOMELY YUMMYLICIOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monu I need to shift to bangalore and find a house next to you seriously !!!!!!!! :P:P:P:P:P
monikamanchanda says
yes aaaja nach lale…. waqt ki bhi yahi demand hai 😀 😀
monikamanchanda says
come come hitchy it will be such fun I tell u
hitchy says
I m sure it would be fun for me !!!!! 😛 😛 😛
masood says
haha..
grow up Dhiren!!!
monikamanchanda says
ha ha ha
sour grapes masood?
hitchy says
😛 😛 😛
Writerzblock says
Wowwwww….sounds and looks yummmmmm! One for me too please, with LOTS of rum 😉
shilpadesh says
Yummm… I will try this one this weekend M……
Reema says
very tasty looking!! how was your trip? happy new year in advance!
Indian Homemaker says
My daughter’s favorite!! I am passing this to my kids to bake this one and treat us 🙂
Indian Homemaker says
Now I can see the picture!!! Looks superb!
maald says
After two failed attempts to post a comment on ‘Diet Update’, here I go again:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jan/15/healthandwellbeing.foodanddrink
<i>One 2003 study published in Obesity Research seemed to confirm this when it found that coconut oil could help overweight men to burn more calories and lose weight.</i>
monikamanchanda says
yes yes pal u come to blore its not far from chennai 🙂
monikamanchanda says
yes yes do and let me know how it turned out
monikamanchanda says
oh the trip was good… post coming up soon mostly 🙂
happy new year to u too reema
monikamanchanda says
mine too 😀 wow I am waiting for ojas to grow up so that I can be treated to these things too he he
monikamanchanda says
thanks IHM
Pixie says
yummy!
I missed it the other day… sigh!
Will wait for the next batch from you for the tasting!!! 😉 😉
Swaram says
Ohh, so u don’t wanna grow up nw 😛
Swaram says
Wow! That looks yum 🙂
When r we meeting again Mons 😛
masood says
hehe…he wrote the same comment for me on some blog yesterday….
shail says
Looks so yum!
Abha says
its looking perfectly yummy mon!! awesome!!
cheers!
mandira says
Mon that looks SO good ya!! rich ,yummy, melt in the mouth types.. im drooling…
monikamanchanda says
thanks will look into it, ur comments went into spam
monikamanchanda says
next batch next xmas 🙂
monikamanchanda says
he he whenever u are coming to blore swaram as u are inviting only pixie to Hyderabad 🙂
monikamanchanda says
shail thanks
monikamanchanda says
cheers abha !!
monikamanchanda says
oh yes that is what it was melt in mouth types
Pixie says
yea! that she has! 😛
others are all just dropping in at her place uninvited!! 😉
monika says
yum yum
maald says
looks like another comment of mine (on gallstone flush) went into your spam
Smitha says
Here I was trying to stay away from baking and I get to see this yummy sounding recipe 🙂
Just one question, Monika- what size cake tin did you use for this?
sri says
yummy 🙂
Pallavi Singh says
I am a cake lover and i really wanna try my hands at it :). I have a microwave . Can I bake the same cake using the same procedure in microwave as well? Looks yummmm …
Annu Kuruvilla says
Does nt this cake need caramel syrup?.how will you get that color?
monika says
Use of brown sugar and soaked fruits will give you the color