I have no rules with food, except one - if you want to eat cake, bake it yourself!
This one is called "crazy" because bakers might really not agree with it, considering how overloaded it is..but hey! with cake, there's no such thing as a "too decadent" cake.
Ingredients for the Soak
A cupful of mixed - Almonds, Cashews, Pistachios, Walnuts & Raisins
Cranberries - 3/4th Cup
Dark Rum (I used Old Monk) - 200ml or amount that drowns all the nuts
Ginger - an inch, sliced
Peels of one orange
Star anise - 1 piece
Cinnamon stick - 1 piece
Add all of the above ingredients in an air-tight mason jar and leave them to soak for about a month. Take out the orange peels by Day 10.
Ingredients for the cake
Cake flour - 2 cup
Cocoa powder - 1 cup
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Castor sugar - 3/4th cup
Butter - 3 sticks/ 300 gm
Eggs - 4 whole
Vanila essence - 1/2 tsp
Cointreau - 60 ml
Oranges - juice of 2
Orange zest - 1 tsp
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Recipe
Pre-heat your oven to 150 degree celsius for 30 minutes.
Start with a nice heavy bottomed saucepan, and add your soaked dried fruits to it. Remove the ginger, cinnamon and star anise from it.
Add in a cup of brown sugar, orange juice and star simmering on lowest flame possible for 10-15 minutes while stirring continuously.
In the end throw in your Cointreau and orange zest; turn the heat off and let it this magic mixture cool down for 30 minutes.
Now take a large glass bowl and start whisking your softened butter and castor sugar in it, till it turns light and fluffy and creamy.
Break in your eggs one by one into the butter while continuously whisking and incorporating them.
Next, sieve in all your dry ingredients and fold them gently with the butter and eggs.
At last throw in the magic Christmas mixture and fold it all in to make fluffy light cake batter.
Line a large cake/ loaf tin with some butter and butter paper.
Pour in your batter to fill it 3/4th and bake for 40-50 minutes.
Keep checking after 30min with a skewer to see if it comes out clean, then your cake is cooked.
Let the cake cool on a rack for 30 minutes before taking it out of tin and serving.
Dust some icing sugar on top for the Christmas snow feels.
Viola!
I like it best with whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
Comentarios