Plum Christmas Cake is a dark flavored and intense cake made in advance for Christmas Day celebrations. It serves one of the best available cakes for Christmas season festivities. Soaked in the richness of dry fruits along with a flavorful mix of Gold Rum makes the cake a big hit. Plum Christmas Cake is loaded with flavors cherished with every bite. Cake desserts are commonly served for almost all celebrations and feasts. A fairly good variety of cakes with and without frosting are available. However for Christmas Day this is my dedicated cake recipe. Plum Christmas Cake is unique and special in its own way, having less density of cake flour and having more of dry fruits. I have added ample candied fruits and orange and lemon peels. To make it more flavorful and zesty I have soaked the fruits in Gold Rum overnight and that makes the perfect Plum Christmas Cake.
While preparing Plum Christmas Cake, the list of raisins, dates, candied fruits and cashews can be altered as per preference, however try to add as much as possible. Lastly, adding 3-4 tablespoons of brandy on top of the cake, enhances the boozy flavor and makes it moist. It gives a longer shelf life. If you love plum cakes, then you must try this cake, that is absolutely delectable with a delicious rich taste. The nuts and dry fruits loaded in the cake makes it wholesome and rich in every bite. This plum cake is the cake I have been following for years and has turned to be the foolproof cake that I turn to every Christmas season. Once you have tasted it, you will be wanting to prepare one for New Year too. Christmas season is coming soon and serve Plum Christmas Cake for Christmas this year.
Plum Christmas Cake
Ingredients
- 1 lb Raisins Onakka munthiri
- 1 lb Dates Eenthapazham
- 1 cup Candied fruits and orange and lemon peel
- 1 cup Gold Rum
- 2 cups Cashews
- 4 cups Allpurpose flour Maida
- 3 tsp Baking powder
- 1 lb Butter
- 4 cups Sugar
- 1 cup Sugar to make caramelized syrup
- 12 nos Eggs
- 1 heaped Cinnamon powder Karugapatta
- 1 heaped Nutmeg powder Jathikka
- 1 heaped Cloves powder Grambu
- 1 heaped Dry Ginger powder Chukku
- 3 tsp Salt
- 4 tsp Pure Vanilla essence
Instructions
- Dice the fruits and coat them with 3 tbsp of flour.
- Add rum and mix well.
- Keep this at room temperature over night.
- Dice or crush the nuts into small pieces.
- :- You can do these steps the day before you plan to make the cake.
- Place the eggs and butter at room temperature the night before you make the cake.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.
- Measure and keep ready the flour, sugar and the flavorings.
- :- To make the caramel, use a white enameled pot, if you have one. The light surface will help to see exactly the caramelizing process. If you don't have one, use a medium saucepan.
- Turn the stove to high and place the pan on the stove and let it boil.
- :- Don't stir the contents at all. As sugar melts and caramelizes, you may swirl the pan a bit once or twice.
- Within 7 - 10 mins, a cherry wood colored caramel forms.
- Immediately, remove the pan from the stove and very carefully add 1 cup of water to the caramel.
- :- You may hold the pan above the sink and slowly add the water, for it may splash.
- Stir the contents well to dissolve the caramel. Keep this aside.
- Sift flour and baking powder, a couple of times and keep ready.
- In a large container, whisk butter first and then add 4 cups of sugar and whisk again, until it is creamy.
- Add eggs and whisk well.
- Add the flour-baking powder mix and fold this in with a wooden or plastic spatula or spoon.
- When they are well mixed, add the candied fruits and nuts and mix again.
- Spoon this into a 10 inch non stick loaf pans.
- Bake for 1 hour at 350 degree F.
- :- You may line the pan with parchment paper or brown paper.
- :- Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the middle of the pan. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done. If not, bake for another 10 - 15 mins and check again.
- Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a cooling rake.
- Pierce the cake with toothpick, and pour Brandy (about 3-4 tablespoon on each) on top and let it soak.
- :- This will enhance the flavor and gives a longer shelf life.
- Remove the cake from the pan only after it is allowed to cool completely.
- Before storing, cover the cake completely with wax paper first and then with aluminum foil and keep in the refrigerator.
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The cake came out ok. Not very tasty
I was little doubtful about 4 cups of sugar, but to my surprise the cake is excellento 🙂 I am going to share it with my friends at work.
The reason to add alcohol is to stay soft and it works for me
Excellent recipe, great to follow, easy to understand, i made it for Christmas and it came out very well, just need to relax and follow the recipe step by step.
The cake came out very well. I think we could try currants, and more cashew instead of dates and the cake will be more soft and moist. Thank you for posting the recipe.
Thank you Latha!I followed your recipe and made this plum cake for Thanksgiving – turned out awesome by followed your recipe step by step.Thanks to you, I enjoyed my favorite cake with friends and family. Even though I made a lot of cake, it was gone in a jiffy!
Dear frnz, many of you have the query that why do we add brandy at last!!. The receipie itself says that brandy is added for shelflife. One speciality about this particular cake is that the more you keep them in refrigerator added with brandy, the more it taste. Every x-mas i do try this cake and my neighbours wonder how i prepared it.
Hi, All
This Recipe is very nice, The only difficulty was about the amount of flour and sugar. that means If they had given the amount in Lbs., that would have become nice out put. However the cake came out very excellent beyond my expectation, I was appreciated by many of my friends. I made the cake with the same amount mentioned in this site and got nearly 7kgm. Wow!!!!. Wonderful.
If some one can give the amount of flour and sugar in Lbs, that would be a great help.
thank you very much.
Christy
This is simply superb recipe. the cake was really yummy and soft that we couldnot stop munching it. if got finished off in a day;). Thank you very much for this excellent recipe
EXCELLENT!!! Thats what I have to say. Never baked cake so soft and yummy. Guys, if you are looking to bake a plum cake thats perfect …this is it! I forgot to coat the rasins,nuts with all purpose flour, and am guessing thats why the rasins and nuts settled at the bottom of the cake. Also, instead of orange rind I added orange marmalade in one of the three cakes I baked that day….it turned out great as well! We have been living on that cake….thank u
This recipe was really yummy, I dint use the orange rind and the candied fruits, I used only raisins, cashews and dates and still turned out soft and tasted so delicious.Thank you so much !! Great recipe !
Excellent recipe!!!! I baked for this christamas and it came out very good. I had guests home and they loved the cake. Thanks for the wonderful recipe.
Excellent recipe for a cake, I try`d it. it was excellent.
The cake came out awesome. Thanks for the recipe !
What is Candied fruits and orange and lemon peel .
IT CAME out very well. my husband was surprised .
I tried it or Christmas.Did not add brandy for flavour.It came out very tasty.(more than bakery standard).Thank you.Everybody liked it.
this cake has come out very well. thanks for the recipe.
great recipie, i tried with half the ingredients and it came out really well. only problem was that the dry fruits setteled down even after dusting the raisins with flour. in case any one has a solution to this problem please advise.
Gr8 taste for the first time of my cake making…Really gud one to try..
Thank you so much for your recipe. You have put this together really well.
Although I followed this recipe to the “T”, I was dissapointed to see my cake burnt after 50 mins!!! So, one suggestion would be is to turn the temp. down to 325 F after 30 mins and then to 250 F after 40 mins till its done.
we hv taken only half portn.karugapatta n chukku podi, i think then it tastes more good isnt it madam
tks rgds
silvester
its was very good.everybody liked it.i have one ques. why to add brandy at last?i didnt find it that good!!!!!
but still thankz for the recipe!!!!
Thanks and it really worked well. But i need a receipe of the same cake but need to serve only 4 adults ie quarter of the above mentioned ingredients .How can resolve this issue?
This is the best Christmas cake I ever made. I only used 3 cups sugar and 3-4 lb butter. Thank you.
My first cake, friends said tastes better than the one from shop. I made two cakes with 10″ pan. First one burned because I kept the cake at the bottom of oven. kept the second one at top so came out perfect. I watched youtube videos for butter-sugar mixing. It helped me. Thank you.
Missed the plum cake from India for many years and kept searching for a good recipe. Tried many others but they did not turn out too well. This was the first recipe where I got the right color and taste. Excellent and would definitely recommend it to friends. Thanks much Latha for sharing.
Excellent cake. Thank you.
Excellent! the cake came out perfect! thanks so much for sharing this recipe..
I made it and for a first time it came out really well.
Came out great!
I tried this for X-mas, came out really well. Excellent recipe.
I make this recipe for every year Christmas for so many years now. Thank you so much Latha. I bake this and share with all my family friends and they all await Christmas to have it.
Please do share a photo to [email protected] of the cake if you have. Thanks for letting us know.