Is it even Christmas without traditional rum and fruit cake? Since, at my place its usually only the kids how eat majority of the cake, I always make alcohol-free version. But this time, I decided to give original version a try and that was the best decision! Recipe I used was from allrecipes.com to I made some changes to desired results. I soaked my dried fruits in rum for more than a week and (here’s a secret tip!) along with fruits I put a cinnamon stick in rum to get that slight hint of spice in fruits along with rum and this trick worked wonders!! The result was absolutely amazing!!

You can use any dried fruits locally available in your area. Since, I live in Bangkok, I made the most of this tropical place and picked loads of dried tropical fruits like mango, oranges, strawberry, pineapple and even pomelo! I also added dried cranberries and cherries to get something sweet to balance all tart in fruits.

Among nuts, I picked almonds, walnuts and pecans. If you want, you can soak them in rum too but prefer them crunchy so I skipped that.

To add holiday Christmas-y feel to it, I added cinnamon and freshly grounded nutmeg powder. The flavors of spices goes amazingly well with rum and since I’ve soaked a cinnamon stick with fruits, I added slightly lesser quantity of cinnamon powder (store brought) than recommended. If you’re grounding fresh cinnamon use even lesser as freshly made powder still has all essential oils and hence stronger flavors than packed ones. Since my nutmeg powder was freshly grounded, I adjusted its quantity as well.

A traditional Christmas cake is further preserved in a rum soaked muslin cloth for a week or at times for a month or more. Since, I prefer my cake crunchy from top and corner, I skipped that part.

I used flour, sugar and butter all in same quantity. Some recipes suggests lesser quantity of butter like 1/2 or 3/4 cup for 1 cup of flour. But stick to 1:1 ratio, it does make a difference. When I was done making my batter and about to pour for baking, I asked my husband to taste it and his response was “is it the frosting, its so creamy!”

RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

• Dried fruits (of your choice): 1/2 cup (as much as you want ;))
• Dark Rum: 1 cup
• Cinnamon stick: 1 inch
• Nuts (of your choice): 1/2 cup
• Eggs: 2
• All purpose flour: 1 cup
• Butter: 1 cup (trust me, don’t reduce the quantity)
• Brown sugar: 1 cup (reduce here if you wish)
• Baking powder: 1/4 tsp
• Cinnamon powder: 1/2 tsp
• Nutmeg powder: 1/4 tsp
• Vanilla extract: 1 tsp

METHOD:

• Pre-heat oven at 160 degree C.
• Line a baking dish butter and parchment paper.
• In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients, all purpose flour, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder and baking powder.
• In other bowl, put butter and sugar and mix until creamy. Add dry ingredients in parts and add some milk if batter gets too tight.
• Add eggs one by one and mix.
• Fold in rum soaked dried fruits and nuts.
• Pour the batter in prepared dish and put in oven.
• Bake for 40-45 mins

Note: Every oven is slightly different heating method. Keep checking on your cake to avoid burning.

Merry Christmas!