Christmas Cake Kerala Style

5 from 7 votes

A delicious festive and traditional cake made with dry fruits, nuts , caramel syrup that tastes heavenly .

Prep Time10

Cook Time55

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Servings:

Calories: 399kcal

Author: Nisha

1 cup All-purpose Flour use 3 tbsp from this to coat dry fruits
¼ cup raisin black
½ cup cashews chopped
½ cup candied fruits candy alternately you can use dates, apricots or any other dry fruits you prefer.
1 pinch salt
¼ tsp cloves fresh ground
½ tsp cinnamon fresh ground
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup sugar for browning and making caramel syrup
¾ cup sugar for beating with butter in the batter
¼ cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
11 tbsp butter unsalted , softened to room temperature

Take a heavy bottomed pan and heat sugar on low to medium flame, taking care not to burn.
This may take about 10 to 20 minutes and will turn into a brown sticky liquid.
Switch off the flame and pour a quarter cup of water .This will cause some splutter and make the sugar to crystalize.
Reheat the pan and keep stirring till you get a smooth free flowing syrup.
Keep aside to cool.

Whisk the all-purpose flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and clove powder. Keep it aside.
Beat the butter, which is at room temperature, along with sugar using a hand mixer or stand mixer for about 5 minutes until it becomes soft and fluffy.
Add vanilla , eggs one at a time and flour in three addition alternatively with each egg.
Finally, add in the cooled caramel syrup and the flour-coated dry fruits and nuts.
Fold in gently and transfer the batter into the baking pan smeared with butter and lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 375 deg F for 55 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean when poked in the center.
Cool on a wire rack and dust it with powdered sugar .Slice and serve.

Coat fruits and nuts with flour before adding them to the batter. This helps keep them evenly distributed in the cake, instead of sinking to the bottom while baking.
Use freshly ground spices such as cloves and cinnamon whenever possible. Fresh spices have a stronger aroma and can elevate the overall flavor of your cake.
For a rich, moist cake, soak the dried fruits before adding them to the batter.
Traditional recipes often use alcohol for soaking.
For a non-alcoholic version, you can soak the fruits in orange juice instead.
This step is optional; your cake will still turn out moist even without soaking, so choose based on your preference.
Important note: when caramelizing the sugar, I used the first method and ran into one hiccup: the caramel syrup began to solidify before I could mix it into the batter. With winter temperatures being so low here, the syrup cooled rapidly. To fix it, I simply reheated it, let it cool just enough, and quickly incorporated it into the batter before it hardened again.