What’s Christmas without a fruity spice flavored plum cake? And guess what, this time around you can do one without any maida, refined sugar or dairy!
Let us celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus with this delicious, flavorful creation.
Ingredients
Dry mix ingredients
- Buckwheat flour: ½ cup
- Rice flour: 2 tbsp
- Almond flour: 2 tbsp
- Rock Salt: a pinch
- Baking powder: ½ tsp
- Baking soda: ¼ tsp
- Walnuts: 3 nos (chopped)
- Almonds: 8 nos (chopped)
- Spice mix: 1.5 tsp
Soaked ingredients
- Mixed dry fruits: ½-3/4 cup (2 figs chopped, 3 dates chopped, 1 tbsp of black currants, 1 tbsp raisins, 2 apricots chopped, 1.5 tbsp of candied peel,candied-orange-peels-refined-sugar-free 1 tbsp cranberries, 1 tbsp dried cherries) (check wellcure tipbelow)
- Fresh orange Juice: Enough to soak the dry fruits.
- Lime zest: 1 tsp (check wellcure tip below)
Blended ingredients
- Cold-pressed coconut oil- 3 tbsp
- Lime juice: 1 tsp
- Flax seed powder: 1 tbsp (check wellcure tip below)
- Jaggery powder: 4 tbsp.
- Nut milk: 2 tbsp (if required to thin the batter)
Ingredients for Spice mix
- · Dry ginger:2 inches (check wellcure tip below)
- · Cinnamon:2 inches
- · Cloves: 8nos
- · Nutmeg: 1 whole
- · Coriander seeds:1 tsp
Method
- Soak dry fruits in orange juice for at least 2 hours. Ensure that the juice just about covers the chopped dry fruits.


- Make lemon zest by grating a whole lime, add it to the soaked fruits.
- Break nutmeg and dry ginger into small bits. Dry roast all the spice mix ingredients on very slow flame only long enough to remove any moisture. Cool and grind into a fine powder and store in an airtight jar.
- Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly and keep aside.
- Make caramel syrup by heating 1 tbsp of jaggery powder in a pan until it melts and changes into a dark brown syrup. Turn off the flame and add 3 tablespoons of water. Melted jaggery burns very quickly so keep a close watch and turn off the flame at the right time.
- Mix flax powder to the warm caramel syrup and leave it aside for 5 minutes.
- Blend flax and caramel syrup along with cold-pressed coconut oil until it turns into a fluffy emulsion.
- To it add lime juice and jaggery powder and blend until well mixed.
- Preheat oven to 180 °C
- Mix the blended mixture into the dry mix. Add to it the soaked ingredients and mix well to get the cake batter of the right consistency.
- Add a couple of tablespoons of nut milk only if you find the batter is too thick.
- Pour the batter into a greased baking tin.
- Arrange the top with chopped peeled nuts as you would like to decorate it.
- Bake for around 20 minutes. Poke a toothpick to check if baked well.
- Cool and unmould.


Wellcure tip:
- Try this recipe with jowar or ragi flour replacing the buckwheat flour.
- Dry ginger is available in dry root form/ sonth as it is known in hindi, hence the quantity mentioned in inches.However, you may use ready dry ginger powder.
- The mix of dry fruits suggested here gives the Christmas cake/ the traditional plum cake the richness, sweetness, flavour and colour effect. However you can skip one or two of them in case you don't have them but don't compromise on the quantity.
- Lemon zest is the peel of lime grated and used. Grate whole lime so that you get the gratings of the lime skin. It lends a strong citrusy aroma.
- Flaxseed powder when soaked in warm water becomes jelly-like and when blended can mimic the texture we get by using eggs.
Eating guide:
- Food group; millets, nuts and fruits
- As a rule, it is best not to mix fruits with other food groups. This can be used as an occasional treat.