Archive for December, 2008

• Indian Fruit Cake

  Date: 2008.12.19 | Category: Indian Recipes | Response: 0

  Ingredients

  
  •    1/2 kg all purpose flour
  •    1/2 cup Semolina (white colored)
  •    1/2 kg butter ( unsalted )
  •    1/2 kg sugar
  •    Fruit cake mix.(soak these in rum for 3-4 days)
  •    3 eggs
  •    1/2 tea spoon  baking powder
  •    1 tea spoon vanilla essence
  •    1 tea spoon  almond essence
  •    1 tea spoon nutmeg powder
  

  Preparation:

  Drain soaked fruits  and sprinkle a tbsp or two of flour over it. Toss to coat well. This prevents the fruit from sinking to the bottom of the cake while baking!
  •    Mix the remaining flour, nutmeg powder and baking powder together well.
  •    Separate Yellow and White of 3 eggs.
  •    Mix 1 cup of sugar in a pan with 2-3 tbsps of water and put on the fire. Cook on medium flame till all the sugar dissolves and the syrup starts to turn dark brown and begins to smoke. Turn off the heat. Carefully add 1/4 cup water and put the syrup back on the fire (medium flame) back on fire and cook till the earlier syrup and added water is nicely blended and smooth. Make sure sugar syrup is cooled to  room temperature before adding to cake batter.
  •    While you are preparing the dark sugar syrup, use a hand blender/ mixer to blend the remaining sugar and butter till smooth, soft and fluffy.
  •    Now add  egg  yellows and continue to whisk till the mixture is light and fluffy.
  •    Add the vanilla essence, almond essence. Whisk some more.
  •    Add a little of the dark sugar syrup at a time and keep whisking. Use up all the dark sugar syrup and blend till batter is smooth. This is to give cake color and  flavor.
  •    Use a cooking spoon and add a spoonful of flour at a time to the above batter while continuing to whisk. Each time you add flour, whisk till that lot is fully blended and the batter is smooth before adding more. Continue till all the flour is used up this way.
  •    Preheat your oven to 350 F
  •    Now add the floured, Fruit mix to the cake batter, a little at a time and fold in very gently. If you like nuts , you can add nuts too. No need to soak nuts in rum. Sprinkle few almond essence  drops on nuts and mix well.
  •    Whisk Egg yellow till it is smooth. Now add this to cake batter, whisk continuosly
  •    Add Semolina to cake batter until it is blended well. At this point cake batter has to be a fine paste. If it is too watery, add more flour to make it a  fine paste. Not too thick and not too watery.
  •    Spoon the cake batter into the prepared, lined tins till half full.
  •    Reduce the oven heat to 250 F and put the cakes in to bake.
  •    Bake till “you start to smell a cooked aroma” ,then poke the cake in the center with a thin bamboo skewer to check if it is done. If the skewer comes out clean the cake is done. If not, keep cooking and check every 5 minutes to see if done.
  When cooked, allow the cake to cool completely before cutting