Christmas Fruit Cake

This post is actually long over-due. Due to the busy season of christmas, new year's eve gatherings followed by CNY celebrations, gambling and all the gatherings, finally i have time for blogging all my christmas and cny bakes.

I have always wanted to bake a Christmas fruit cake. My mum likes to make either fruit cake or butter cake during festive season like xmas and CNY to feed us for breakfast because most of the shops and easteries will be closed for CNY. I did a search online for Christmas fruit cake recipe and accidentally i found out the history of fruit cake. In america and in western countries, fruit cake is a must for Christmas especially for the winter season. A Xmas/ traditional fruit cake can be preserved in a air tight container or wrapped tightly with aluminium foil can be kept up to 3 months. To keep the cake moist, you can brush the fruit cake with Rum/ brandy every week.

I actually baked another fruit cake on eve on CNY, i preserved it with aluminium foil wrapped around it for 1 month. My hubby and i had the last few pieces 2 days ago and it taste perfectly nice and the fruits mix with rum taste great!


Ingredients: (8" round cake pan)
225g butter (at room temperature)
130g light muscovado sugar
4 egg yolks (at room temperature)
1/2 - 3/4 tsp salt
15g orange zest
15g lemon zest
4 tbsp orange juice

300g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 - 1 tsp all spice

300g - 400g mixed dried fruits (soaked in 3 - 4 tbsp of your favorite liquer)
5 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
50g caster sugar

Method:
1. Soak dried fruits in liquer for at least 24 hours.
2. Preheat oven at 170C. Line the bottom of baking pan with 2 layers of baking paper. Either line the sides or grease the sides.
3. Sieve flour, baking powder and spice and leave aside for use later. Remove 50g of this flour mixture and mix it into the dried fruits.
4. Cream butter till soft, add in the salt and muscovado sugar and beat till mixture is pale and fluffy.
5. Beat in the yolk one at a time. Add in the orange and lemon zest.
6. Mix in the orange juice alternating with sieved flour mixture till well combined.
7. Beat egg whites till bubbly, add in the cream of tartar and beat till it is white in color. Add in sugar by thirds and beat till stiff peaks formed.
8. Fold whites into the butter mixture gently.
9. Add in dried fruits and mix gently.
10. Pour batter into cake pan and smooth out the surface with a wet spatula, at the same time make a very shallow hallow in the middle of the batter for even rising.
11. Reduce oven temperature to 160C and bake for 90 - 100 minutes or till cooked and golden brown.
12. Drizzle cooked cake with a tablespoon of liquer and leave it to cool in its baking pan.

Notes:
I used only 300g of mixed dried fruits, so the sweetness for the cake is just right.