May's Christmas Cake.

The cake's baked and yes, it is named after me. I know I am late in baking the X'mas cake, but am glad that nevertheless I managed to bake it before a week. I hunted around quite a bit for the perfect recipe. There were so many to choose from, so finally what I did was use my judgement based on all that I had read and turned out with my very own X'mas cake. It has turned out awesome, am afraid that it will not last beyond 2 days, let alone christmas. Knowing my family, I luckily baked two....one to distribute to friends and the other for us!! Hopefully they do not start digging into the second one....

     I thought I would do the posting tonight itself, lest I forget what went into the recipe. To begin with, I soaked the raisins and peel in rum for a good whole two months!! Yes, they went into soaking in October..:) Here's how they looked after soaking in all the rum.

So here's how I went about.

Ingredients:

• 500 gms raisins
• 300 gm citrus peel
• 250 gm candied cherry
• 500 ml rum or brandy
• 300 gm butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 and a half cup flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup apricot or plum jam
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp dry ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
• 1/2 cup dates
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or almonds

Method :

1. Combine raisins, peel and candied cherries in a medium sized bowl. Pour in brandy or rum and leave at room temperature overnight, a week, a month or more..:)
2. Grease a loaf pan or round tin with 2 layers of parchment paper. Drain soaked fruits reserving the liquid. 
3. Sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and baking powder into a bowl. Preheat oven to 150 degree celcius.
4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until combined.
5. Add the flour mixture and jam. Beat until well combined.
6. Stir in the soaked fruits and almonds or walnuts. Mix well.
7. You can divide this mixture into two tins(as I have done) or bake a whole cake. Spread the mixture into prepared tin. Bake in oven for 90 minutes or till a wooden pick comes out clean.
8. Allow cake to cool in pan. When cooled, remove cake from pan. Peel off parchment paper. Brush reserved liquid all over the cake. Wrap with parchment paper followed by aluminum foil. Seal cake in food storage bag and allow to age till christmas..:) Brush cake once a week with rum or brandy.

Note: As of now, quarter of our cake is over. So it looks like, I will be following step 8 to the cake which is reserved for presenting.

The above picture is after applying the rum marinade. This cake is wrapped and stored in the fridge till christmas. Will post some more pictures in a week, once the cake is cut.

Linking this post to the december carnival on  The Key Bunch. Come and see what all the fun is about!!!