KERALA FRUIT CAKE
(Non Alcoholic)
250 g unsalted butter
250 g cake flour
5 eggs
250 g caster sugar (just take normal sugar and grind it to fine)
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
Dry fruits:
1 heaped cup, you can increase ½ cup more if you like more dry fruits. Please refer to the dry fruits recipe for the dry fruits measurements.
½ cup sugar caramel
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon each Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom powder
Preheat oven to 180 ºC. Grease and line baking pans.
Make the caramel syrup (please refer the step by step method).
Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda, 1 tsp of spice powder (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamon), and salt into a newspaper, keep this aside.
In a bowl, cream butter for a minute with an hand held beater until fluffy.
Add in the 250 gm castor sugar (I measured sugar and blitzed in the dry grinder). Cream for 2-3 minutes.
Add in eggs one by one, beat after each egg, all of 5 eggs.
The batter will be very creamy.
Add half of the sugar caramel syrup and mix.
Add in the flour mix and rest of the caramel syrup, add the syrup cautiously, we do not want a loose batter
The batter will be very thick yet fluffy and creamy.
Take 1 cup of dry fruits and add 2 tablespoons of cake flour into it, this is very important, so do not skip it. Mix with a spoon.
Add this into the creamy batter. With a spatula, fold the fruits into the batter very gently.
Pour the batter into the greased cake pans.
Bake at 180 ºC for 35-40 min or until done.
Once cooled down, dust with icing sugar
NOTES
Always preheat oven to 180 ºC before baking.
Do not bake in a cold oven.
Kerala fruit cake are best after a week.
Photo: Elize de Kock