Christmas cake | Christmas fruit cake without alcohol | Eggless Christmas cake without Alcohol
Christmas cake recipe made with delicious dry fruits & nuts without alcohol and without eggs. Learn with a video and stepwise pictures. Christmas cake is commonly popular all over the world commonly known and eaten in the names like Christmas fruit cake, plum cake, fruit and nut cake etc. The usual and authentic process of making this Christmas cake involves a lengthy process in which the dry fruits and nuts are soaked from weeks to months in alcohol (rum or wine) and used in the cake. Obviously, that type of fruitcake is not good for health and not advisable to serve for kids.
I searched a lot for a non-alcoholic Christmas fruit cake recipe and found this one. This Christmas plum cake is an Eggless Christmas cake without alcohol and tastes great, perfectly suitable for kids and teetotallers.
Of course, you can use eggs if you like spongier cakes and soon I will post a Christmas cake with eggs.
Instead of alcohol, we use any fresh fruit juice like orange juice, apple juice or grape juice with a dash of lemon. You can use zest(skin scrap) of lemon or orange in the batter for a strong fruit flavor.
You may like my other baking recipes: Vanilla sponge cake
Actually baking the fruitcake is tricky because of the lots of dry fruits and nuts we use as they may affect the even heat spreading while baking. Hence do not overload them with solid ingredients like nuts and fruits. Use only a limited quantity to get proper baking.
Also, I would like to mention the consistency of the batter. The batter should be neither watery nor thick like dough. Reduce juice and other liquids quantity accordingly. And comes the baking time and temperature. Follow the given time and temperature exactly for the heat to reach the middle of the batter evenly. If your cake crust becomes dark and burnt, don’t worry or don’t stop baking until the middle portion is cooked well.
Now see a detailed video here:
Christmas cake | Christmas fruit cake without alcohol | Eggless Christmas cake without Alcohol
Ingredients
Ingredients:
Dry fruits & nuts:
- As per your choice
- 2 tsp cashews
- 2 tsp almonds
- 2 tsp dates
- 2 tsp cherry
- 1 tsp tutty-fruity
- 1 tsp black dry grapes
- 1 tsp dry grapes
Cake ingredients:
- ½ cup orange juice
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 tbsp water
- ½ cup fresh cream or thick milk
- ¼ cup butter
- ¼ cup oil
- 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon/nutmeg + coco powder
Instructions
Preparation:
- Extract fresh orange juice and keep aside. Instead of orange juice, you can use fresh apple juice or grape juice for soaking the nuts and fruits.
- Chop cashews and almonds into small pieces. You can use walnuts and pista pieces also.
- For fruits and dry fruits, I used glazed cherries, dates, black dry grapes, yellow dry grapes, and tutty-fruity.
Recipe to make Eggless Christmas fruit cake without alcohol:
How to soak nuts and dry fruits:
- In a bowl, take orange juice, lemon juice and add all chopped nuts and dry fruits.
- Leave for soaking. I left them soaked for a day in the refrigerator. If you are in a hurry you can skip the soaking part and proceed with just mixing and baking. But soaking the nuts and fruits in juice gives a nice taste and texture to the Christmas cake. You can soak for just an hour.
How to make caramel sauce:
- Keep a pan on the stove, add brown sugar with a tbsp of water and let it dissolve in low heat.
- Stir continuously for few minutes until sugar dissolves completely. Do not let the liquid to become sticky syrup. Just dissolve the sugar and switch off the stove immediately.
- Add fresh milk cream and mix with the sugar water.
Cake batter:
- Transfer the contents to a bowl, add melted butter, oil and mix well.
- Now add the soaked ingredients along with the juice.
- Sieve flour into a large mixing bowl, add baking salt, baking powder, salt.
- Also, I added a tsp of coco powder along with a pinch of cinnamon powder.
- Gradually add the wet ingredients along with the soaked nuts & fruits into the flour bowl.
- Combine wet and dry ingredients to make a thick cake batter. Actually, my cake batter became little more watery because of more liquid. Hence I got moist and dense fruit cake. If you like light fluffy cake, reduce the liquid quantity, use either oil or butter.
- Use a spatula and mix the batter gently.
- Grease a cake tin or line the baking tin with a parchment paper.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C.
- Pour the cake batter into greased bake tin, bake the plum cake for 50mins to 1 hour.
- Check the finished stage by inserting a tooth pick.
- After completion, take out from the oven, let the cake cool down for 30minutes.
- You may get dark brown crust or slightly burnt top dome. But do not worry, just let the cake to bake fully until the middle portion of the cake is cooked well.
- Do not be on a hurry to stop baking when you see darkened crust. If the top layer is darkened, just slice it out. I Sliced off the browned crust of my cake but forgot to take the picture.
- You can see the perfectly cooked middle portion and the slice of dense fruit cake.
Notes
Nutrition
Preparation:
- Extract fresh orange juice and keep aside. Instead of orange juice, you can use fresh apple juice or grape juice for soaking the nuts and fruits.
- Chop cashews and almonds into small pieces. You can use walnuts and pista pieces also.
- For fruits and dry fruits, I used glazed cherries, dates, black dry grapes, yellow dry grapes, and tutty-fruity.
Recipe to make Eggless Christmas fruit cake without alcohol:
How to soak nuts and dry fruits:
- In a bowl, take orange juice, lemon juice and add all chopped nuts and dry fruits.
- Leave for soaking. I left them soaked for a day in the refrigerator. If you are in a hurry you can skip the soaking part and proceed with just mixing and baking. But soaking the nuts and fruits in juice gives a nice taste and texture to the Christmas cake. You can soak for just an hour if you running out of time.
How to make the caramel sauce:
- Keep a pan on the stove, add brown sugar with a tbsp of water and let it dissolve in low heat.
- Stir continuously for few minutes until sugar dissolves completely. Do not let the liquid to become sticky syrup. Just dissolve the sugar and switch off the stove immediately.
- Add fresh milk cream and mix with the sugar water.
- Also, add melted butter, and mix well.
Cake Batter:
- Transfer the contents to a bowl, add oil & the soaked ingredients along with the juice.
- Sieve flour into a large mixing bowl, add baking salt, baking powder, salt.
- Also, I added a tsp of coco powder along with a pinch of cinnamon powder.
- Gradually add the wet ingredients along with the soaked nuts & fruits into the flour bowl.
- Combine wet and dry ingredients to make a thick cake batter. Actually, my cake batter became a little more watery because of more liquid. Hence I got moist and dense fruit cake. If you like light fluffy cake, reduce the liquid quantity, use either oil or butter.
- Use a spatula and mix the batter gently.
- Grease a cake tin or line the baking tin with a parchment paper.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C.
- Pour the cake batter into greased bake tin, bake the plum cake for 50mins to 1 hour. You can decorate the cake at this stage with nuts on top.
- Check the finished stage by inserting a toothpick.
- After completion, take out from the oven, let the cake cool down for 30minutes.
- You may get dark brown crust or slightly burnt top dome. But do not worry, just let the cake to bake fully until the middle portion of the cake is cooked well.
- Do not be in a hurry to stop baking when you see darkened crust. If the top layer is darkened, just slice it out. I Sliced off the browned crust of my cake but forgot to take the picture.
- You can see the perfectly cooked middle portion and the slice of dense fruit cake.
Tips:
1) The baking time may vary depending upon the depth of the pan and heat level of your oven.
2) Choose fruits and nuts as per your liking.
3) Thinner batter yields Fuller, denser and moister fruit cake. If you like fluffy and light cake, make a slightly thick batter and reduce the fruit&nut quantity. The measurements given in this recipe gives the moist cake and the batter used is neither thin nor thick.
4) Do not add more lemon juice as the cake may turn bitter.
5) I added coco powder along with a pinch of cinnamon powder for flavor.
