Christmas plum cake. A gorgeous showpiece for your holiday table, this cake is a beloved Indian Christmas treat. While rum-soaked dried fruits and warm spices act as the main flavor elements, caramel syrup plays a key role in making this cake rich and decadent. Perfect way to brighten up the Christmas Day!
Why I Love This Rich Cake
Who doesn’t love holiday baking? It’s obviously a chance to upskill your baking skills, both traditional and new. From Christmas fruit cakes to pretty iced cookies, festive bakes highlight the flavors of the holiday season. If you are after fruit- laden cakes with striking flavors and textures, this recipe brings in the perfect sweet treat for your holiday table.
This cake doesn’t contain any plums, but it’s loaded with dried fruits, chopped nuts, warm spices and bright orange zest. To make the perfect rich and moist cake, the dried fruits are soaked in rum for about two months in advance, infusing the cake with the unique flavor of rum-loaded fruits. The silky caramel syrup called blackjack also adds to the richness and color of the cake.
Key Ingredients In Christmas Plum Cake
- Dried fruits - Choose your favorites.
- Rum or orange juice - To soak the fruits.
- Sugar - Brown, white and granulated (caster) sugar.
- Butter - Unsalted and softened.
- Flour - The key ingredient.
- Spices - Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger.
- Eggs - Give the light lift, and richness and depth of flavor.
- Cocoa powder - Gives the cake a slight chocolate flavor and deepens the color.
How To Make Christmas Plum Cake
Soak fruits - You have two options here. Soak all the fruits and nuts in rum for about 2 months in advance, or you can boil them in orange juice until they are soft. Make sure you cool the fruits to room temperature before adding into the cake batter.
Caramel syrup (blackjack) - This is simple caramelized sugar made by browning sugar over stovetop with a couple of tablespoons of water. Pour in some hot water to get the dark brown syrup.
Prep the dry ingredients - Sift all the dry ingredients including flour, baking powder, baking soda and dark cocoa powder into a large bowl. You will also need to sift the spices alongside flour.
Cake batter - Start with creaming sugar with softened butter. Once you get the pale and fluffy texture, adds the eggs and beat to combine. Next, beat in orange zest, vanilla extract, caramel syrup and a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add in all the dry ingredients. Then, finally, fold in the soaked fruits.
Bake - This cake requires a longer baking time, about an hour. Once it comes out of the oven, let it cool completely, and brush with more alcohol if you like.
Christmas Plum Cake
Ingredients
Soak dried fruits:
- 1 cup dried fruits
- 1 cup rum or orange juice
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon fruit jam
Caramel syrup (blackjack):
- ½ cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 210 ml hot water
Dry ingredients mixture:
- 1 ¼ cups all purpose (plain) flour
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened dark cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Cake batter:
- 250 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup granulated (caster) sugar
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon orange zest
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Topping:
- 2 tablespoons chopped nuts and dried fruits
Instructions
Method 1 to soak dried fruits:
- Start the recipe 2 months in advance.
- Place dried fruits in a large glass container with lid. Add orange zest.
- Pour in rum until just covered.
- Cover and soak for about 2 months, giving a stir occasionally.
Method 2 to soak dried fruits:
- Place dried fruits in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Add orange juice, orange zest, lemon juice, brown sugar and fruit jam.
- Bring to a boil. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Cool completely.
Make caramel syrup (blackjack):
- Place sugar and water in a small saucepan over low-medium heat.
- Swirl the pan gently as the sugar melts.
- When the sugar turns deep brown, turn the heat to low, and add hot water, gradually. Be careful as the water with splutter.
- Stir to make smooth caramel syrup.
- Remove from heat, and cool completely.
Dry ingredients mixture:
- Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, ground ginger and salt into a bowl.
Make cake batter:
- Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350F.
- Grease and line the bottom and sides of a deep 22 cm cake tin with baking paper.
- Using an electric hand held or stand mixer, beat butter for 2 minutes or until creamy.
- Add sugar and beat for about 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add vanilla extract, orange zest, vegetable oil and cooled caramel syrup.
- Beat for 1 minute or until combined.
- Add half of dry ingredients mixture, and beat until just combined.
- Add the remaining half of the dry ingredients mixture, and beat until combined.
- Add soaked fruits. Fold in gently.
- The batter will be thick.
- Pour batter into the prepared tin and level the top.
- Top with chopped nuts and dried fruits.
- Tap the cake tin lightly to remove air bubbles.
- Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool in the tin for about 10-15 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- You can spray the cake with rum if you like.
Video
Notes
- Dried fruits - If using larger fruits like dates, prunes, apricots and candied peel, chop into smaller pieces. You can also add chopped nuts, preferably cashews and almonds for the traditional taste.
- Orange juice - This is the alcohol-free version, and I used freshly squeezed juice.
- Jam - I used raspberry.
- Nuts - Chopped cashew nuts and almonds can be added to the batter as well as to the topping.
Nutrition
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Amy says
Such a rich Christmassy cake
Raina says
Time consuming but worth the effort. The cake looks absolutely perfect!
Tulli says
Beautiful recipe, I added about 1/4 cup of chopped nuts to the batter & it came out perfect.
Hunny Bunny says
I made the cake following the recipe exactly. Great recipe!!