This Christmas Plum Cake is a rich, moist, dense and tempting golden Christmas cake, made with mixture of chopped dried fruits or candied fruits, alcohol (or fruit juice for an alcohol-free version) and sweet Christmas spices.

Many Christmas cakes are made with dried fruits that have to be soaked for months or weeks ahead but not this Christmas Plum Cake.

This Indian classic Christmas Plum Cake can be made a month in advance or even a day ahead, if you are pushed for time.

This cake is made using a speedy soaking method – the chopped dried fruits along with alcohol or juice (see recipe card below) are first microwaved briefly and then soaked for an hour. This brief soaking helps the dried fruits to rehydrate and become plumpy thus resulting in a deliciously moist cake.

I love making this Christmas Plum cake because it is one of the least messy ways of making a fruit cake.

So, ring in the holiday season with this easy, speedy soak Christmas Plum Cake. Decorated with fresh cherries, it makes a beautiful centrepiece for your Christmas dessert table along with other Christmas desserts!

Christmas Plum Cake is a rich fruit cake that is traditionally eaten in India at Christmas, after religious services.

Christmas in India is never complete without this classic treat on the Christmas day along with other traditional and modern savoury and sweet Christmas treats.

A bakery bought Christmas Plum Cake has always starred as a big part of Coelho Christmas celebrations, as back in the day, most home kitchens were not equipped with an oven to bake a cake at home and dried fruits, were of course, an item of luxury not many could afford!

This Christmas Plum Cake recipe is inspired by my granduncle Isidore Coelho in his beautiful Mangalorean cookbook called “The Chef”, the only cookbook that stays open throughout the year on my kitchen bench! I’m eternally grateful to uncle Isidore for his legacy of documenting great recipes for generations of home cooks to cherish and enjoy.

As some of my family like to eat Christmas pudding with a lovely slosh of custard, I also like to make a delicious Christmas Pudding as the second centrepiece to my Christmas dessert table along with this chilled tropical Mango Custard.

This Christmas Plum Cake is easy to make and does not need soaking. It’s rich yet not too rich, moist yet not soggy (like some I have tasted) and packed with a mixture of chopped dried fruits. It’s a proper Indian (Mangalorean) Christmas classic, and perfect whether you are making it ahead to mature, or a little closer to the Christmas day.

It’s a triple tested recipe and will turn out beautifully even if you are making a Christmas cake for the first time.

Christmas cakes can come in different shades of brown – light and golden, dark brown and almost black. The contents of this column are well worth reading for those who have not made a Christmas cake before or making a Christmas cake for the first time.

Colour of the cake is a personal choice. In order to save disappointments, choose the colour when you are planning to make the cake – light and golden (like the one above), dark (like the one below) or rich very dark/nearly black (scroll through the post for a very dark rich Christmas cake).

As you browse through my blog, you will find images of Christmas Plum Cakes using different colour sugars. I hope you will find seeing these images useful in deciding the colour of your cake, while planning to make your cake.

In the period leading up to Christmas, I have tested making cakes using different colour sugars, and these are my findings:

White sugar or powdered sugar – Will yield a light golden cake (my cake is a light golden-brown, as I have used white sugar for this cake). I have also used a combination of rum and brandy (also contributes to the colour) and treacle (for colour, flavour and slightly bitter notes) in my cake.

Brown sugar – Will yield a slightly darker cake than the cake with white sugar, in combination with rum, brandy and treacle.

Soft dark brown sugar – Will yield a cake even darker than a cake with brown sugar bearing in mind, you will be using rum, brandy and treacle.

If you are fussy about the colour of your cake, please take a moment to read this column to get an idea which is the preferred choice of colour for your next Christmas Plum Cake.

Example of dark Christmas Plum Cake

Example of a very dark Christmas Plum Cake using only raisins, dark brown sugar, Bundaberg rum and treacle!

When I was growing up in India, my parents always bought their Christmas plum cake at one of the local bakeries. Mixed fruits were a prized item, and we had no oven at home to bake cakes. I always dreamt of baking my own Christmas cakes when I had my own kitchen.

Baking a Christmas Plum Cake in my own kitchen is a dream come true for me. Yaay!

At first glance, making this fruit cake may seem complicated because it seems like a lot of ingredients, but actually it’s very easy. The secret is to prepare and weigh all the ingredients and line the cake tin before you start any mixing.

The assembly is straightforward. The rest is an exercise in patience; the wait begins.

To make it easy to follow, I have classified the ingredients into two parts:

1. Easy soaked dried fruits; and
2. Plum cake batter.

1. Easy Soaked Dried Fruits:

• Cashew Nuts – I have used chopped cashew nuts as they are my nuts of choice. Use any of your favourite nuts and preferably only one nut type.

• Brandy & rum – Alcohol rehydrates the fruits, infuses depth of flavour and moisture, while preserving the cake for longer. Rum and brandy are the traditional fruit soaks found in most home bars in India, and I still use the same here. Substitute: 140mL apple juice for a less flavoured non-alcoholic Christmas Plum Cake or 140mL orange juice for an intense citrus flavoured non-alcoholic cake. Important: It is good to note that a cake without alcohol won’t last as long as the one with it.

• Mixed fruit – This recipe gives the flexibility of using either a combination of individually chopped dried fruits (if time permits) or store-bought pre-chopped mixed dried fruits (for convenience). I have chopped my own mixed dried fruits for this recipe. The total overall volume of dried fruit and nuts for this recipe should not exceed 500g ie. 430g mixed dried fruit and 70g chopped cashew nuts.

2. Plum cake batter:

• Butter and Oil – Butter adds flavour and oil helps to keep the cake moist for longer. I have used salted butter, but if you stock only unsalted butter, it works well too. I am not a fan of adding salt in cakes, but add a pinch, if you must!

• White/brown/dark brown sugar – This cake can be made with white, brown or dark brown sugar (my cake is made with white sugar). You will see light brown, brown and dark brown cakes as you browse through my blog. This is done with purpose for you to be able to see the different shades of brown, using different colour sugar. Choose whether you would like a light brown, brown or dark colour cake, depending on your taste and preference.

• • White sugar (aka granulated, table or regular sugar) – will yield a light brown colour cake with yellow hues.
  • Brown sugar (aka light brown sugar) – makes the cake a slightly darker shade of brown; and
  • Soft dark brown sugar – Will yield a deep rich dark brown colour cake.

• The ground spices – A combination of warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and mace are the key pantry and spice cupboard staples that complete the perfect Christmas Plum Cake. Check to make sure your spices are within their due date for best results. Find mace at: Ground mace can be purchased from most Indian grocers. If you have difficulty sourcing ground mace, you may substitute with ground cloves, available in most large supermarkets on their spice shelf.

• Baking powder – As this Christmas Plum cake is a dense cake, we do not want the cake to rise too much and then fall. ¾ tsp. baking powder gives a slight rise that is perfect and maintains well for the life of the cake. The slight fall, once completely cooled, is hardly visible to the naked eye.

• Rum flavouring or essence – Star ingredient that gives this cake that unique sweet bitter aftertaste. Alternative: Same quantity of pure vanilla extract but you probably will not have the same sweet bitter aftertaste.

• Treacle Syrup – A dark sweet syrup created during the process of refining sugar. A little treacle adds a rich festive flavour, mildly smoky aroma and slightly bitter taste. Find at: Woolworths and Coles supermarkets. My favourite brand is CSR Treacle Syrup. Substitute: If you can’t source treacle, don’t panic. Use equal quantity of golden syrup for a caramel flavoured cake.

• Eggs – Use room temperature eggs. One hour before you plan to make the cake, remove the eggs from the fridge. By the time you measure the ingredients, the eggs will come to room temperature.

• Plain flour (All-purpose flour) – Has medium protein content that creates enough gluten to support the heavy dried fruit and nuts without collapsing. Creates a perfectly dense Christmas cake in combination with ½ tsp. of baking powder.