Chocolate Fruit Cake

 I have always told about how much everyone in my house likes Fruit cake, This recipe is my another take on this gorgeous cake, yes it is Chocolate fruit cake. For Other Variants of Fruit Cake, Click here.

Ingredients

Maida or APF - 1.5 Cups
Sugar -1 Cup
Cinnamon powder - 1 Teaspoon
Vanilla Essence - 1 Teaspoon
Buttermilk - 3/4 Cup
Cocoa powder - 1/4 Cup
Mixed Fruits and Nuts - 1.5 Cups (Mix with 1/4 Cups of Maida)
Baking Powder - 1 Teaspoon
Eggs - 2 (Large)
Butter - 3/4 Cup

Method

• Grease and dust a baking pan and keep it ready.
• Pre - Heat the Oven at 160 C.
• In a mixing bowl, Cream the sugar and butter well using a whisk.
• Add Vanilla essence to this and mix well.
• Add egg one by one and whisk it well.
• To this add the Buttermilk and whisk it in.
• Meanwhile, sift Maida, Cocoa Powder, Cinnamon Powder, Baking Powder twice and keep it aside.
• Now add the sifted Ingredients little by little into the Whisked ingredients and fold it in.
• To this, add the Mixed Fruits and Nuts and fold it in.
• Now pour this into the greased Baking tin and bake at 160C for 40 Minutes or till it is done.
• Cool this completely before serving.

Eggless Fruit Cake - No Butter

I love fruit cakes, as we dont use any alcohol at home, I usually soak them with Orange Juice for a Day and make these cakes. I will write a seperate post of this some time. Now lets go on with this recipe.

Ingredients
Maida or APF - 2 Cups (Keep 1/4 Cup aside)
Oil - 1/ 2 Cup
Mixed Fruits and Nuts - 1 Cup (Add the 1/4 Cup of Maida kept aside)
Sugar - 1 Cup
Orange Juice - 1/2 Cup
Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon powder - 1 teaspoon
Baking Powder - 1 Teaspoon

Method

• Sift Maida,Cinnamon powder and Baking powder together.
• In a mixing bowl add sugar and Oil and mix them well.
• Now add the Orange Juice to this and Mix well.
• To this add the Sifted flour mixture and mix them well.
• Then add the Mixed Fruits and nuts dusted with Maida to this.
• Pour this to a Baking Pan, which is greased and Dusted.
• Bake this in a Pre Heated Oven at 170 C for 40 -50 Minutes or till done. (Mine took 60 minutes)
• Allow it to cool completely and slice it and serve.

Yummy Fruit Cake

 I have already posted different versions of Fruit Cakes, I had bookmarked this recipe for some time now and wanted to try it.

Do try other Fruit Cake recipes from here.

 Ingredients

Maida or APF - 2 Cups
Mixed Fruits and Nuts - 2.5 Cups (Mixed with 1/4 cup of flour)
Eggs - 3
Baking Powder - 1 Teaspoon
Butter - 1 Cup
Sugar - 1 Cup (I have used 1/2 Cup of Brown Sugar and 1/2 Cup of Regular Sugar)
Vanilla Essence - 1 Teaspoon
Cinnamon powder - 1 Teaspoon

Method

• Sift Maida, baking powder and Cinnamon powder together and keep it aside.
• Grease a Baking pan and dust it with flour and cut and place parchment paper on the bottom and Sides of the Tin.
• Pre heat the Oven at 170C for 15 minutes.
• In a mixing Bowl, Cream Butter and sugar together.
• To this add egg one by one and whisk it well.
• To this add the Vanilla essence and whisk it in.
• Now add the sifted flour little by little to the wet ingredients and fold it in.
• At last, add the Mixed fruits and Nuts and fold it in.
• Pour this mixture into the prepared Tin and Bake it for 50 minutes at 170C or till it is done.
• Cool it completely before slicing it.

Dilkush - Whole Wheat Bead stuffed with Dried Fruits and Nuts 

Dilkush is one of my favorite from Bangalore Iyengar Bakery, they are so soft and yummy. It is usually made with Maida and stuffed with dried fruits and coconut. I had to customise couple of them to suit my folks taste. So I made it with Whole Wheat and did not use but used Dried fruits and nuts. 

Whole Wheat is not as soft as Maida but it was good and was able to eat extra pieces. In the Notes section I have given how to make it using maida or APF.

Ingredients

For the Shell:Whole Wheat Flour - 3 Cups
Luke Warm Water - 1.5 Cups
Dry Yeast - 1.5 Teaspoon (1 Teaspoon Instant yeast, 1.5 teaspoon Active Dry or 3 teaspoon Fresh Yeast)
Sugar- 1 tablespoon
Salt - 1 Teaspoon
Oil - 1 Tablespoon (I used Olive Oil)

For the Filling:
Cashews - 6 Tablespoon (Broken)
Tutti Frutti - 2 Tablespoon
Figs - 2 Tablespoon (chopped)
Badam - 2 Tablespoon (Chopped)
Cherries - 2 Tablespoon (Chopped)
Dates - 2 (Chopped)
Cinnamon Sugar - 2 Tablespoon (I have added less , you can use as per your taste)
Feel Free to add or not use any other Dry Fruits or nuts you want. 

Method

• Lets Prepare the filling first, mix all Dry fruits and Nuts of your choice and mix it with 2 tablespoons of sugar. 
• In a mixing bowl, place the luke warm water and add the sugar and stir it well. To this add the Dry yeast and cover with a plate and leave it aside till it is frothy.
• In another mixing bowl, place the Wheat Flour and Salt and add Butter or Oil and mix it well. To this add the Yeast water and knead for 8-10 minutes or till you get a smooth pliable dough.
• Now place this dough in a oiled bowl and cover it with a damp cloth and allow it to rise. This may take 1 Hour.
• Once the Dough has doubled, bring the dough to the top of the kitchen counter and punch it down and knead for couple of minutes.
• Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll them into 2 circles.
• Now on a greased tray, place one of the circles and place the filling all over the circle, leaving 1/4 inch of space over the edges.
• Now slightly damp the 1/4th inch that you left on the edge with some water.
• Place the 2nd circle on top of this and press it along the edge.
• The water will act as binding agent and will bind the 2 circles with filling in between them.
• Make a incision of the top using a sharp knife. 
• Cover it lightly with a damp cloth and allow it to rise for 30-45 minutes.
• After 30-45 minutes, Bake it in a Pre heated Oven for 30 minutes at 180C and Broil for 5 minutes.
• Once you take it out of the oven, apply some butter on top.
• Allow it to cool and then cut and serve.

Notes:

• If you want to use APF or Maida reduce the water to 1 cup.
• You can use milk instead of milk or 50:50 milk:water for kneading the dough for both WHole Wheat and Maida or APF Shell.
• You can do 50:50 of Wheat and APF too.
• You can use replace Olive Oil with Butter too.
• For filling you can use shredded coconut, Cashew along with Tutti fruity for the original filling as in Iyengar Bakery.  

Pumpkin Bread - With Wheat 

After my success with the Pumpkin Soup, I wanted to bake something using Pumpkin but somehow I slipped out of my memory. So this time as soon as I purchased Pumpkin, I headed home and started making this aromatic Bread.

Do try this and I promise you wont be disappointed at all.

Ingredients
Whole Wheat Flour - 1 Cup
Pumpkin Puree - 1 Cup (Refer to Pumpkin Soup)
Maida - 1 Tablepoon
Raisins - 1 Tablespoon
Almonds - 6-8 (Roughly Chopped)
Sugar- 1/2 Cup (I used Brown, bu regular sugar is fine too)
Yoghurt - 2 Tablespoon (Subsitute with Soy Milk for Vegan)
Grated Coconut - 2 Tablespoon (Optional, But believe me this takes the bread to the next level)
Oil - 1 Tablespoon
Baking powder - 1 Teaspoon
Cinnamon Powder - 1/2 Teaspoon
Salt - A pinch

Method

• In a mixing Bowl add Pumpkin Puree, Curd,Oil, sugar,coconut,cinnamon powder,salt and mix well.
• Sift Wheat flour, Baking Soda and Maida together.
• Mix the Sifted Flour to the prepared liquid mixture and lightly mix them.
• To this add the Raisins and Almonds.
• Pour this prepared batter into greased Baking Pan.
• Bake this at 190C in a pre heated oven for 30-40 minutes or till it is cooked.
• Cool it completely and then slice. 

Fruit Cake

It is Christmas time and time for the yummilicious Fruit Cake. They are so many recipes available on this online: With Rum, Non Alcohol, With Caramel Sauce, with Brown Sugar etc.

This recipe I am sharing is easy and pretty simple. We need equal amount of Butter,sugar,Maida and Egg to whip this cake.

This cake will be fluffy inside and crispy outside.

Ingredients

Maida /AFP - 1 Cup
Butter - 1 Cup (AT room temperature)
Egg - 1 Cup
Sugar - 1 Cup
Baking powder - 1 Teaspoon
Vanilla Essence - Few Drops
Mixed Fruits and Nuts - 1 Cup (See notes below)

Method

Pre Heat the Oven at 180C. Take a Baking pan and grease it with butter and dust it with Maida.

Sieve the Maida and Baking Powder together. Sieving them together will ensure that they mixed well together uniformly. If you are a beginner you can sieve it may be 2-3 times.

Take the fruit and Nuts you want and add a tablespoon of Maida to it and mix it. The mixing of Mida will ensure that the Fruit and Nuts don't sink and is spread all over the cake.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. To this add the Vanilla essence and eggs and mix well.

Now add the sieved Maida + Baking powder to the Butter-Sugar-egg mixture and fold it.

Dont beat the batter as it will make the cake so hard. So gently fold the Maida in the wet ingredients. Folding is done to ensure that they is aeration which will make the cake fluffy inside and Crispy outside.

To this add the prepared Fruits and Nuts and gently mix this.

Now pour this prepared Batter into the prepared Baking tin and Bake it for 20-25 Minutes at 180C.

Once it is done, cool it completely and slice them and Serve.

Merry Christmas. 

Note:

The choice of Fruits and Nuts is completely up to you. I have used Cashews,Cranberris,Tutti Frutti,Badam,Walnuts,Fig,Dates,Candied Orange peel, Cake Seeds and Pista.

You can add whatever you want and how much ever you want.