Best Plum Cake Recipes for your Christmas celebrations
The winters are arriving, and so is Christmas! With Christmas Eve approaching fast, we need just three things to get back the same nostalgic feeling of childhood Christmas celebration—a Christmas tree, a grand feast for dinner (roasted duck or chicken is a must! ), and a rich, delicious Christmas plum cake.
Talking of plum cakes, it's best when it’s homemade. Preparing a Christmas plum cake not only fills every corner of your house with the delectable aroma of freshly baked cake but also with the warmth and festivity of Christmas celebrations.
For those who are wondering what a rich plum cake is, it is a dense, moist cake where each layer is embedded with the goodness of dried fruits like cashews, raisins, prunes, or currants. Some people who want a mild taste of liquor in the cake often prefer to soak the dry fruits in alcohol. You could also experiment with this cake with spices, nuts, or citrus zest.
This blog is about two such popular plum cake recipes: the Traditional English Plum Cake and the Indian Christmas Plum Cake. We will discuss the plum cake ingredients and the methods to make each of them.
Traditional English Plum Cake Recipe
Traditional English Plum Cake is a kind of rich and dense fruitcake filled with dry fruits soaked in alcohol and warm spices. You can enjoy this yummy creation with a cup of hot cocoa at the Christmas evening celebrations.
Essential Plum Cake Ingredients for that tasty bite...
You need a series of ingredients to bake this plum cake recipe. Let's go through the list. For the soaked dry fruits, you need to arrange the following ingredients:
- 200g of raisins
- 200g of currants
- 100g of chopped prunes
- 100g of mixed candied peel
- 100ml rum (or brandy also works!)
The batter is the foundation of any cake. So this batter holds the success of your creation. You need to take:
- 250g of unsalted butter ( melt it a little bit)
- 200g of brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 250g of white refined flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg powder
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
- 50g of ground almonds
- Zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons of black treacle (or molasses)
- 50ml of milk
Almost everyone likes to have a crunchy feel in their soft plum cake. You can also give your Christmas plum cake a fruity twist by adding chopped almonds or walnuts, like about 100 grams.
Steps on how to make this plum cake
1. Prepare the fruits before you start baking
Take a big bowl and throw all your dry fruits like raisins, currants, prunes, or candied peel in it, and fill the bowl with rum or brandy, whichever you have. Mix everything up well and cover it with plastic wrap or just a utensil.
You must leave these dry ingredients to soak for at least 24 hours or more to bring the rich aromatic type of flavor. It is best if you soak your dry fruits for 1-2 days before the baking process starts.
2. Make the cake batter
First, begin by combining butter and sugar. Melt the softened butter in a pan on medium to low heat and add sugar to it. Keep stirring it till it becomes light and fluffy.
Now it’s time to crack your eggs! Crack one egg at a time, mix them properly, and beat the eggs till they become fluffy.
After this, slowly pour the black treacle, orange zest, and lemon zest into this mixture.
Add all these wet mixtures in one bowl and keep it aside.
3. Mix all dry ingredients
Take a big bowl and sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves separately into it.
Now, if you are done preparing both the dry and wet mix, gradually pour the dry ingredients into the wet mixture with constant stirring.
Also, add milk, alternating with your dry ingredients to maintain the smooth consistency of the batter.
4. Add the crunchy fruits and nuts
Remember your soaked fruit bowl? Add those soaked fruits and some chopped nuts or walnuts very slowly into your cake batter. You must fix them gently for even spreading all over the batter.
5. Baking the cake
For a rich plum cake, it's best to use a deep 8-inch round cake tin for baking. Grease the cake tin with an oil brush and line it. And while doing this, preheat your oven by setting the temperature to 150°C or 300°F in the meantime.
Pour the full cake batter into the cake tray and use a spatula to smoothen the top. Now bake your cake in the preheated oven for 2.5–3 hours.
After 2 hours, you can take out the tray and put a toothpick inside the cake. If it comes out clean, then your cake is almost ready. If you see a smudge of cake on the pick, then let it bake in the oven for some more time.
6. Cool down the cake
Let your cake cool down for 30 minutes on the cake tin and then transfer it to a wire rack.
If you prefer a strong flavor, you can brush some additional rum or brandy on the cake and wrap it tight with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Store the cake for 1-2 weeks before eating.
Tip: You can slice this cake into thin pieces and serve it with hot tea or whipped cream for an afternoon snack.
Indian Christmas Plum Cake Recipe
Indian Christmas plum cake is a spicy, rich fruitcake made with alcohol or juice-soaked dried fruits, nuts, caramel syrup, and warm spices. It compliments the spicy Indian flavor profile and is perfect for a twist to the traditional plum cake recipe.
Plum cake Ingredients to make this cake
Soaked Fruits:
- 200g of raisins
- 150g of chopped dates
- 100g of tutti frutti
- 50g of dried cherries
- 50g of dried figs
- 100ml rum, brandy, or orange juice ( anyone is fine)
Caramel syrup:
- 100g of granulated sugar
- 4 tablespoons of water
- 4 tablespoons of hot water
Cake Batter:
- 200g of all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg powder
- 1/4 teaspoon of clove powder
- 150g of unsalted butter (softened)
- 150g of brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons of orange zest
- 50g of chopped cashews or almonds
How to make this delicious plum cake recipe?
The general method of baking a plum cake is almost the same. So this cake also has almost similar steps.
- Soak the dry fruits in alcohol or orange juice, stir, and keep for 1-2 days before baking.
- Prepare your caramel syrup. Take some sugar in 4 tablespoons of water and heat it in a pan over medium flame until the sugar melts. Slowly, you can see the golden brownish color of caramel appearing. Stop the stirring and keep it aside.
- Prepare your cake batter in the same way you did for the Traditional English plum cake. Combine the flour, spices, baking powder, and baking soda. Take one more bowl to cream the butter and brown sugar until it becomes fluffy and then crack the eggs and beat them. Your wet ingredient bowl is ready.
- Combine all your soaked fruits and chopped dry fruits into the wet cake mixture.
- You need just 50-60 minutes to bake this cake. OH! Don’t forget to preheat your oven first. Set the oven temperature to around 155°C to 160 °C.
- Apply the toothpick technique to check if your cake is done or not.
- Cool your cake for about 20 minutes in the tin and after it cools down a bit, carefully place it on a wire rack.
- You can enhance the flavor of your cake with a brush of some rum, brandy, or juice.
Get Delicious Christmas Plum Cakes from us!
Christmas plum cakes are the delightful additions that liven your winter celebrations. Your home getting filled with the rich, aromatic flavors of warm spices of plum cake—isn’t it a delectable scenario? So what are you waiting for? Quick!! Learn these recipes and start preparing your ingredients, cause winter is just around the corner.
Oh! Wait! You can’t bake? That's okay, cause we have the perfect solution for this—our Rich Plum Cake. We, Cakebee, have launched our new exclusive plum cake for the Season Special cakes collection. It comes in 200g, 500g and 1Kg sizes that compliments the rich flavors of Indian spices and dry fruits.
We can’t let your Christmas fun dry just because you can’t cook, can we? If you are living in the major cities of Tamil Nadu like Chennai, Trichy, Madurai, or Coimbatore, you can easily enjoy this plum cake online. Also get it delivered across Tamil Nadu.
Now enjoy your Christmas celebrations with a taste of twisted happiness!!