Plum Cake

India is a land of dreams with rich culture and heritage. Due to the diversity in several aspects, India can be termed as the Epitome of the world. Here people from different religions and cultures coexist harmoniously and thus celebrate numerous religious festivals. The soul of each festival is to bring harmony between biological and cultural diversities. Each festival celebration in India involves nature, family traditions, inculcating families bonding, etc. No festival of any religion is complete without scrumptious food, family gatherings particularly Christmas is incomplete without a plum cake. Here is my desi twist to plum cake. Enjoy the awesome plum cake😍😍 !!

Wishing you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎁

Ingredients:

Maida flour: 2 cups

Powdered sugar: 1 cup

Vegetable oil: 2/3 rd cup

Cocoa powder: 2 tsp

Warm water: 1.25 cups

Baking powder: 1 tsp

Baking soda: Half tsp

Almonds: 5/6 nos. Crushed

Cashews: 7/8 nos. Chopped or crushed

Walnuts: 5/6 nos. Crushed

Cinnamon +clove+cardamom powder: 1- 1 1/2 tsp

Vanilla essence: Half tsp

For soaking:

Orange juice: 100 ml /grape juice can also be added

Candied mixed fruits: 1 tbsp

Dried plums: 1 tbsp chopped

Black raisins: 1 tbsp

Kismis/dry grapes: Half tbsp

Garnishing:

Powdered sugar: As required

Hershey’s chocolate syrup: 2 tsp

Method:

🎄 Soak candied mixed fruits, chopped dried plums, black raisins and kismis in 100 ml of orange juice. Mix well and soak for two hours. Instead of orange juice grape juice can also be used.

🎄 After two hours of soaking, prepare the plum cake batter.

🎄In a cake mixing bowl, pour 1.25 cups of warm water. Add powdered sugar and 2/3 rd cup of vegetable oil. Whisk well with a hand whisker.

🎄 Now sift maida flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and ground cinnamon+clove+cardamom powder.

🎄 Also add vanilla essence. Gently mix the mixture to form a smooth batter. Mixing of cake batter is also very important to get good texture for the cake.

🎄 Before preparing the batter, preheat oven at 170 degrees for 10 minutes. After mixing dry ingredients to wet ingredients, we have to be quick enough to pour the batter into the mould.

🎄 After preparing the batter, pour the batter in a mould lined with butter paper greased with little oil. Bake the cake at 170 degrees for 40 minutes heating both the elements. The temperature and time completely dependent on individual oven settings.