Weekend Baking - Fruit n Nut Cake

Some time to spare in the weekend and thus comes the scope for experiments in the kitchen.

Below is the recipe I followed for Eggless Fruit n Nut cake. It worked well for me.

One needs little less than 3/4 cup of demerara sugar, 1/4 cup to prepare caramel and rest to be added to the cake flour mixture as is.

Why: Little less than 3/4 cup as we will add 1 mashed ripe long banana (that adds much needed sweetness)

What: Demerara sugar is natural brown sugar that caramelises fast. Gives the rich, brown color to our Fruit n Nut cake. Available in most provision stores in Bangalore under Eagle brand.

How: Heat little less than 1/4 cup of water in a fry pan, add 1/4 cup of demerara sugar to it, stir constantly to prepare a caramel syrup.

Now in a bowl, take 1 and 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour - add to it 1 tsp Baking powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, 1/2 tsp dry ginger powder, 1/2 tsp shajeera powder and 1/2 tsp salt.

Sieve the contents together so that they mix thoroughly and evenly.

To this flour mixture, add 1 ripe mashed banana, 1 cup of broken cashew, walnuts, unseeded dates (cut and sliced) and dry, black raisins. All these put together must comprise 1 cup.

Add remaining sugar (little less than 1/2 cup that we are left over with) + 30 g of unsalted butter (melted in a pan) + 1 tsp vanilla essence and pour in the caramel syrup prepared, giving all contents a careful and thorough mix.

Grease the baking tin and dust it with little flour on the inside. Pour in the cake batter.

Preheat the oven to 180'C and bake the contents at 180'C for 40-45 minutes (a toothpick inserted at the end of baking must come out clean)

Once baking is over - turn the tin upside down on a flat plate, let the cake cool down.

Tap gently and remove, the cake is ready for cutting.

From across several websites, it was suggested that the tin with cake batter in it be covered with alumimium foil and then put into the oven for baking. Guess this will ensure uniform and thorough browning of the cake surface.

I baked for about 35 minutes with the foil, removed it and baked again without foil for the remaining time. I had a perfectly baked cake after 45 minutes time.

Have a happy weekend !!

Pics: Taken on Nikon 3110 C Camera