Hello there :-)
Christmas is coming and I'm very excited for it! To be honest, my family doesn't celebrate the season, we just go to my aunt's place for a simple dinner and gift-exchange but honestly the whole festive atmosphere makes me so happy every time December comes. It's definitely one of my favourite months, together with February.
I feel like something indispensable about festive seasons would be the food and the smell of freshly baked goods. Why turn to scented candles when you can have the real smells coming from your oven? (Well, actually I really love scented candles and won't say no to them but yes -) Christmas isn't even here yet but so far I've already made some iced sugar cookies which you can find here and today, I have another recipe for another Christmas favourite - fruit cake! :-)
Christmas fruit cake traditionally has some form of liquor in it, but this one is non-alcoholic because I've never really experimented with using booze in my baking. The cake would usually have to be covered in cloth soaked with alcohol for days, even months or years but I've substituted it with orange juice to give it the moist texture is still needs. So here's my take on:
NON-ALCOHOLIC FRUIT CAKE
Ingredients:
1. 200g flour
2. 50g ground almonds (powder form)
3. 1 teaspoon baking powder
4. 1/4 teaspoon salt
5. 1 orange
6. 115g unsalted butter
7. 100g sugar
8. 3 large eggs
9. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
10. 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
11. 60ml milk
12. 200g mixed fruits (the preserved candied kinds)
If you'd like, you can add things like walnuts/ almonds etc. I don't really like nuts in general because of their texture but I still wanted the nutty taste, which is why I have the ground almonds and almond extract in the ingredient list.
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degree Celsius
2. Lightly grease the pan to ensure the cake comes out clean later on - just take some oil and wipe it all over the pan with a piece of serviette
3. Combine your flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt (first four ingredients) in a bowl and mix them together
4. Zest the orange peel into the flour mixture and keep the orange
5. Mix in the peel and set the flour mixture aside
Ooo balding orange in the background!!
6. Cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy
Tada!
7. Add your eggs, one by one, beating them in well after each egg is cracked in
8. Once the eggs are incorporated, add your vanilla and almond extracts - the almond extract is really really strong so make sure you put only one quarter of a teaspoon; the measurement for this is vital, unlike the vanilla extract heh there's always room for more vanilla :-)
9. Add your flour mixture in halves and fold it in
10. Add your milk gradually as you mix your flour in
11. Finally, putting the fruit in fruitcake, we have the fruits! Add them in and mix well - if you're adding nuts, add them in at this point too
Okay confession: I added the whole box of mixed fruits (i.e. 300g) and my batter was really overfilling with fruits. I wouldn't recommend doing the same thing as I did, 150-200g of fruits should be more than enough but I was greedy and I like candied fruits so. It won't change the taste of the cake, except that you'll get mouthfuls of fruit in every bite.
F R U I T S
12. Pour the batter into the oiled pan
14. In the meantime, squeeze the orange for its juices (use the same one you got the zest from)
15. Once the cake is done, take it out and let it cool for 10-20minutes in its pan
16. Pour the orange juice over the top of the cake and watch it soak through it. It's hard, but let the cake rest for a few hours in the fridge (perhaps overnight) or even two days so that it becomes more moist.
17. When you're ready, run a knife down the sides first before overturning the pan
The moment of truth!
And there you have it - a lovely lovely fruit cake (with a bit too much fruits but that's perfectly fine with me). I felt like the almond flavour was slightly overpowering but I quite liked it. However, if one doesn't like almonds, the cake wouldn't prove good. Feel free to leave out the almond extract because it's a bit on the artificial side and the ground almonds should provide enough flavour already.
Yay
I admit I was impatient to slice this up so my slice wasn't very neat for the piece pictured in the above two photos but the one below is a little neater and it has had time to set a bit in the fridge overnight.
I didn't really try it with tea, but I'm pretty sure it'd go really well with that! Have fun baking and having the beautiful fresh smells fill your house - it's a really cozy and warm feeling.
