Eggless Buttermilk Fruit Cake
Every baker’s repertoire should have a good collection of fruit cakes, don’t you all think so? I admit that I have a couple of recipes in the blog, but the yearning to better the existing one is pretty strong. That’s one thing that probably drives me 🙂 But I don’t have much cake lovers at home. Hubby (I think just to make me happy) gobbled down a slice and had to literally beg Neha to taste a bit. Reluctantly, she ate a one centimetre piece 🙁
My mom however ate a slice and I too enjoyed one. yes, I am a big lover of fruit cakes and have grown up on Monginis plum cake which my dad used to specially get for me.
Well, coming back to this easy fruit cake, this cake is delicious, moist and bursting with flavours. The roasted nuts add a nice bite to it. The dried fruits are evenly distributed in the each slice. This recipe comes in handy when you don’t have soaked fruits with you and yet you crave for a nice fruit cake. Plus this is eggless too. The buttermilk helps to keep the cake soft and moist too.
As always, I have used a 240 ml cup. You can use around 2 cups of the dried fruits and around one and a half cups of the flour. The flavour of the cake deepens as it gets a day older. So, it’s better to bake at night and slice it the following day. You can skip the orange marmalade if you don’t have. Adding a spoon or two of thick orange juice will also give it a nice citrusy taste. You can check the blog for more such recipes. Till then enjoy the last month of this year and wishing you all happy days ahead.
Ingredients:
- All purpose flour 200 gm
- Salt a pinch
- Baking powder 1 tsp
- Baking soda 1/2 tsp
- Brown sugar 75-100 gm
- Vanilla extract 1 tsp
- Butter 100 gm
- Buttermilk 240 ml (1 cup)
- Nutmeg grated 1/4 tsp
- Clove powder 1/4 tsp
- Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp
- Ginger powder 1/4 tsp
- Cashew pieces 1/4 cup
- Walnuts/pecans 1/4 cup
- Dates chopped 1/4 cup
- Dried fruits+candied peels 300 gm
- Orange zest 1 tbsp
- Lemon zest 1 tsp
- Orange marmalade 2 tbsp
Method:
- Preheat the oven at 150-160 degree Celsius for ten minutes.
- Grease an 8 inch loaf pan or a 7/8 inch round cake tin with butter. Dust it with flour and tap out the excess flour.
- Sieve the flour, spice powders, salt, baking powder and soda two times.
- Chop all the dried fruits, dates and candied peels into small pieces.
- Dry roast the cashews and walnuts and chop them into small bite size pieces.
- Mix these chopped fruits and nuts into the dry flour mixture so that everything is coated with the flour.
- Add the zest too and mix.
- In a measuring jar, mix together the buttermilk, butter (you can use melted butter) and powdered sugar. Whisk well till everything is combined well. You may blend everything in a mixer jar.
- Add the vanilla extract, marmalade and mix.
- Slowly, pour the liquid mixture into the flour or add the dry ingredients into the liquid mixture. Fold gently till there are no dry flour particles. Do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smoothen the top with a spatula. Tap it on the counter to remove air bubbles.
- Place the tin into the preheated oven on the lower rack with both rods and fan mode on.
- Bake for around 45-55 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Take the tin out of the oven and place it on a wire rack.
- Demould the cake and cool completely, preferably over night.
- Slice and enjoy.
Notes:
- For the dried fruits, you can use a combination of black raisins, golden raisins, cranberries, black currants, dried apricots, figs, peaches, prunes, candied cherries, candied kiwi etc. Feel free to add or omit any fruit mentioned above.
- To make the buttermilk add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to one cup milk. Stir well and keep aside for 5-10 minutes. Instant buttermilk is ready. You may also use regular thick buttermilk which isn’t very sour.
- You may add or omit any spice according to your taste.
- For the candied peel, you can use orange peel and lemon peel.
- I have added only 75 grams or light cane sugar and found the cake to be sufficiently sweet. The dried fruits impart lot of sweetness to the cake. The cake tastes better the next day.
- Use long serrated bread knife to slice the cake.
- The cake will stay good at room temperature for 3-4 days. You may place the cake in a warm oven for few minutes after three days for increasing the shelf life.
- You may use cinnamon or lemon or orange extract instead of vanilla extract.
