Classic Christmas Cake

Finally, yesterday, I did a spot of baking. Decided to try out the Classic Christmas Cake recipe by Sunbeam, which came in a small booklet attached to the December 2005 issue of Better Homes & Gardens magazine. There are all sorts of recipes for fruit cakes and puddings in this issue. :) Earlier this year, I tried out the Rum and Raisin Chocolate Pudding. It turned out absolutely fab, but was gone before I could take a photo of it. :P

Most classic christmas cakes and puddings call for a bazillion kinds of dried fruits and nuts. Well, as I really couldn't see the difference between sultanas and raisins, I cut off quite a lot from the jumble.

4 eggs
2 ½ cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
250g butter softened at room temperature
1 ½ cups soft brown sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla essense
1 Tbsp cinnamon powder
300g pitted prunes, chopped
300g raisins
250g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup white wine or any liquer
½ cup apple cider/vinegar

1. Soak prunes and raisins in the wine and apple cider for at least one hour.
2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla essense. Add eggs one by one and beat well.
3. Drain off excess liquid from the soaked fruits and add to the mixture. Add the chocolate too. Mix well.
4. Sift flour together with baking powder.
5. Fold in the flour mixture and cinnamon powder to the fruit mixture.
6. Pour into greased cake tin. Bake in a preheated oven (180ºC) for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a skewer 'cucuk'ed comes out clean.

Gosh...The cake is h-e-a-v-e-n. :P Super moist,rich and sweet and smells so nice! Surprisingly, it smelt like Amos' cookies when baking. :D

One thing I'd like to share. I'm strongly against dried mixed fruits people usually put in fruit cakes. Urgh!