Cooking with Shail

Happy new year everyone!! This recipe is basically a Christmas recipe but I made for the start of new year. New year means many new resolutions and I have just one resolution that is to keep cooking and trying new recipes. The original Christmas cake has rum for its fermentation I have used fresh homemade orange juice for fermenting my dry fruits as we do not use alcohol. You can use store bought orange juice also. I have fermented my dry fruits for 3 days originally it is fermented for even upto a month the more it is fermented the more it releases flavors. If you are using store bought orange juice then ferment it overnight and use it next day as store bought juices tend to have their expiry dates. The orange juice gives it a nice sweet and tangy flavor and the cake turned out delicious. There are different nuts used for this the basic are raisins, dated, dried black currents, sultanas, apricots, figs, cherries, tutti fruit, cranberries, cashews, walnuts, almonds. I have chosen my selected few and added accordingly. The main process of this cake is the fermentation or maturing of the dry fruits once that is done the cake tastes amazing. Lets check out the recipe…

Ingredients:

For fermenting:

Tutti Fruit, Dried Black Currants (chopped), Raisins, Sultanas, Cherries (glazed or sweetened or regular) (chopped), Figs (chopped), Dates (seedless) (chopped) – 1 and 1/2 cups

Nuts:

Cashews (chopped), Almonds (chopped), Walnuts (chopped) – 1/2 cup

Dry Ingredients:

Maida/ All purpose flour – 200 grams

Brown sugar – 100 grams

Baking powder – 1 1/4 tsp

Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp

Cinnamon Powder – 1 tsp

Nutmeg (grated) – 1/2 tsp

Coco Powder – 1 tbsp

Wet Ingredients:

Butter (at room temperature) – 150 grams

Condensed Milk – 250 ml

Orange Juice – 4 cups (approx)

Others:

Apple (grated) – 1 cup

Method:

For fermenting:

In a glass jar with lid take all the ingredients as mentioned for fermenting and add in roughly 1 and 1/2 to 2 cups of orange juice and cover and let it ferment or mature for minimum 2 days. After 2 days you will observe the juice is being absorbed by the dry fruits and small bubbles will be formed. This means your dry fruits are fermenting.

For making the cake:

1) Sieve together the dry ingredients (except the brown sugar) and keep aside.

2) In a large mixing bowl take the condensed milk and butter and whisk the butter till it has completely dissolved. Now add in the brown sugar and mix it well till completely dissolves.

3) Now add in the sieved dry ingredients into this and mix it well. It will feel a bit dry. At this stage start adding the remaining orange juice little by little till the batter is loose and of pouring consistency.

4) Now add in the chopped nuts, the fermented dry fruits, orange zest and grated apple into this batter and mix it well.

5) Pour this batter into greased cake mould of desired shape and bake into a preheated oven (preheated for 10 minutes at 180 degrees celcius) for 30 – 35 minutes at 180 degrees. Un-mould once completely cool.