Fruit cake

This fruit cake was baked for taking to Gauthappan's school as Christmas, New year gift cake, which is been like a tradition for past 4 years now.  So this time of the year he will ask for the special cake for his friends and teachers, the reason being he would be seen privileged that day at school ;)

This time I thought to bake a healthy fruity cake for the kids, which tastes like heaven, fluffy and; when I say healthy I mean it. It is an extravaganza of all rich nuts and dry fruits, that I had trouble cutting the pieces :D With good quality butter, eggs, fresh cream which was my experiment, by the way :D Adding to it is home grown passion fruit juice, as replacement to liquor, as it is for kids. Passion fruit has never ditched my experimentation. Everything cooked and baked out of my terrace farm passion fruit turned out awesome in past too.

When I was planning for this cake in my mind I never thought it would turn out so good. Anyway the little boy tasted it first in the morning, his breakfast bite, and was counting and arranging the pieces that he wants to take to school.  

And there was a long piece awaiting to get cut, and from behind someone snatched it is what I could remember. Yes, my big boy. It was so fun watching them fight for the last piece and even though I couldn't fetch a whole piece for myself, nothing can be so satisfying to see the food being enjoyed by my boys. And since it happened the last day of my vacation in Kerala, I was a little upset thinking that, I am gonna miss all these fun in a few hours!

Here it goes the recipe.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup         

Corn flour - 1/4 cup + 2 tbsps for coating fruits
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Fresh cream - 1/4 cup
Eggs - 2 nos
Butter - 3/4 cup
White sugar - 1 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 1/2 tsp
Dry fruits and tutti fruiti - 3/4 cup

Home made apricot preserve - 2 tbsp (recipe will be added soon)
Passion fruit juice - 1/4 cup
Water - 2 to 3 tbsps

Method:

Sift together all dry ingredients and keep aside.

Chop the dry fruits and mix with passion fruit juice.

In a bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla extract and eggs one by one and beat well until smooth and frothy. Add fresh cream and apricot preserve to this and beat well. Now add dry ingredients and mix well, with strained passion fruit juice used for soaking dry fruits. Add water to loosen the batter a bit if it is too thick to pour.

Coat the dry fruits with corn flour. Gently fold in this to batter.

Preheat oven at 180 C for 10 mins and bake at 180 C for 35 minutes. Cool in wire rack completely before cutting.

Be careful while cutting as it has lots of fruits. Use a sharp knife to cut, coz you can see mine doesn't have perfect edges because of not using a sharp knife.