Growing up in Shillong, a tiny hill station in India, Christmas has always played a very important role in my life! We celebrate with fruit cakes, and Christmas carols would be playing in every house that we could hear when we would walk by. Here is another simple but unique Orange and Mint Cake that I love to bake during this time. It’s an emotion that will forever remain very close to my heart. My brother makes a stunning fruit cake with dark rum but am still staying away from alcohol since I haven’t started giving booze infused dessert to my boy, just yet!
Ingredients for my Christmas Fruit Cake
Dried fruits - You can take your choice of dried fruits and chop them into tiny bite size. I used apricots, melon skins, dried cantaloupe, dried mango, dried kiwi, ginger, and few other fruits along with raisins and cranberries. Orange Juice - Instead of using dark rum, I use fresh orange juice to rehydrate the dried fruits. Walnuts or your choice of assorted nuts - I like to use walnuts and pecans to the cake mixture. You can keep it nut-free too. Eggs - This cake is made with eggs, but you can make it egg free too by adding 1 cup plain yogurt. The texture will however be a little different if you use yogurt. Brown Sugar - Instead of white sugar, I like to use brown sugar for this cake recipe. It adds to the color and also adds a toffee like taste. Oil - My Mom always used oil for this cake and I stuck with that. But you can try with room temperature butter too. Dry Ingredients - The dry ingredients are the regular flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. All sifted together and then mixed to form the batter. I am personally a big fan of carrot cake and considering the perfect timing of good carrots, I sometime add grated carrots too. If you enjoy carrot cakes, try my carrot cardamom cake
Steps to prepare
1- Chop the dried fruits into tiny, even bite size and keep in a bowl. If you are using nuts, don’t add that yet. 2- Squeeze fresh orange juice and add it to the dried fruits. Keep aside for an hour or two for the fruits to rehydrate. 3- Whisk eggs with brown sugar. 4- Whisk oil and to the mixture until it looks smooth and oil doesn’t look separated anymore. 5- Shift the dry ingredients.6- Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients to make a smooth, thick batter. 7- Add the soaked nuts along with the orange juice, and the chopped nuts. Mix to incorporate everything. 8- Add in an 8-inch round pan. Wrap a wet baking strip around the pan for even baking. The baking strip also avoids creating the dome on top of the cake. Once the cake is baked, leave it aside for 5 minutes, then take it out of the pan and let it cool down completely before you slice. When it comes to baking the cake, I always look for an easy route where I can just throw everything in one bowl, whisk it up and done. This cake is so fuss free that even if you don’t bake often, you can easily pull it off without much effort at all.
More Christmas Cake to try
Beetroot Cocoa Cake Gingerbread Mini Bundt Eggless Chocolate Cake I love to see your creation from my blog, so if you make this spice mixes, tag me on social media @playfulcooking. Learn about the vibrant cuisine of Kolkata – Check out my book Taste of Eastern India and follow the #tasteofeasternindia
