Blink and miss

What’s a Christmas without gorging on rich moist yummy plum cakes! Come December and the husband takes it upon himself to hunt down the perfect Xmas plum cake and picks up plum cakes from all over the town. In Bangalore the only perfect plum cake I’ve had is that from the Taj’s Sugar and Spice available at the overseas women’s club (OWC) Christmas bazaar. The regular cakes available in the stores are too dry and the ones available at bakeries are too chyawanprashy. And none of these are eggless.

Every year I attempt baking eggless plum cakes but they never turn out perfect. Well, this time around I already had this Kerala style plum cake recipe in mind and was itching to try it out since months. This recipe is from Ammini Ramachandran (who single handedly led me to admire the rich vegetarian legacy of Kerala) who was invited as a guest at show me the curry.

I modified the recipe to make it eggless by using flaxseed powder as an egg substitute and the eggless plum cake turned out soft, moist and full of fruits and nuts – just the way a Christmas plum cake should be. Ignore the bad photographs because my zero photography skills don’t do any justice to this gorgeous eggless plum cake, more so because good eggless cakes are really so rare to get.

Here’s my eggless version of Christmas plum cake.

For Eggless Xmas special plum cake, you’ll need -

1. 2.5 cups of flour
2. 2 cups of sugar
3. 150 gms of unsalted butter, at room temperature
4. 2.5 cups of chopped nuts and fruits – I used cashews, almonds, walnuts, sultanas, raisins, figs, tutti fruti, black currants, apricots.
5. 3/4 cup of pitted and chopped dates
6. 1 tbsp of chopped candied ginger
7. 1/2 cup of rum or brandy
8. 4 tsp of flaxseed powder, mixed in 1 cup of water
9. 1 tsp baking powder
10. 1 tsp vanilla essence
11. 3 cloves, powdered
12. 1/2 tsp of nutmeg powder
13. 1 tsp of cinnamon powder

For the caramel

1. 6 tbsp sugar
2. 3 tbsp water
3. 1 tsp of lemon juice
4. 1/2 cup of boiling water

Pour a couple of spoons of rum over the chopped dried fruits and nuts and store them in a jar overnight. If you have the time, you can soak them in enough rum to cover the dried fruits and nuts, for weeks or even months like it is done traditionally. But I personally didn’t find the taste compromised because of the overnight soaking.

Next day, take 1/2 cup of rum in a pan and add the chopped fruits and nuts and heat everything for a couple of minutes, while mixing it well.

For the caramel, take 6 tbsp of sugar and 3 tbsp of water in a pan and heat it till the sugar dissolves and turns into caramel (approx 6-7 minutes). Do not use a spoon or spatula, just keep swirling the pan as necessary. Once it turns into a nice golden brown caramel colour, gently add 1/2 cups of boiling water. Be very careful while doing this, as boiling hot caramel can cause some serious burn injuries.

I find it difficult to powder small amounts of spices, so I added 2-3 cloves, one small piece of cinnamon, one small piece of nutmeg in the jar with the sugar while making powdered sugar. Beat the softened butter, powdered sugar, vanilla essence and flaxseed powder dissolved in 1 cup of water together using a hand blender or whisk till light.

Sift the flour, baking powder and slowly fold it into the butter and sugar, adding a little at a time and whisking it well. Again whisk this mixture well and finally add in the fruits and nuts.

Grease the pans well with butter, specially the corners and dust it lightly with a little flour. Pour the cake batter in the pans and bake it in a preheated oven on 180 C till the top turns golden brown or a when a skewer comes out clean. Invert on a wire rack and let it cool for 30 minutes. Then gently tap the bottom of the mould.

Voila – take a fork and dig in!