Spicy Christmas cake

Wishing all my friends a Happy 2010

Here at home we had a wonderful holiday period.
I hosted the Christmas eve dinner in my place and then went to my in laws place for Christmas day itself.
As always my in laws did the New years even party in their home.
Oh yeah got some loveley present for my kitchen.
Daughter gave me this beautiful cake form and she also gave me a creamic plate for making quiche , when i was opening up my present she told me I rememberd you telling once you wanted to make quiche and she saw this in the shop and thought why not buy thi. Well mom is not complaning at all :-)
One of the gifts hubby gave was a tray for my new oven .

And from one of our good freinds we got a gift card for a romantice dinner , we can choose from 40 diffferent restraunts in whole of Belgium, well that is all the gifts i got which is food related.

My Christmas eve table,crackers made by my daughter

Kitchen presents

New years eve table at my in laws place

I had planned to post this Christmas cake before I took the break, but then I was so busy I didn't had any time to decorate the cake and take the picture. So as I promised in my earlier post here is my christmas cake.

I used to make the traditional English christmas cake, but none of my family like them, they all say it is too heavy with so much fruits etc in it. So i had stopped making those cakes.
Last year I made this cake which I absloutley loved, still the rest of them family like it but they didn't like it so much as i did.
So this year I made this cake, from the Vanithat Magazine and the christmas day when I took to my in laws place and MIL sliced and everybody took a bite they all said togehter this is the best christmas cake I have ever made. So you all already know every year I am sure gonna make this cake.

My daughter who is not a fan of cakes with dried fruits in them, even ate two slices so that itself says how delicous they were.

Now to the recipe:

Dry fruits 450 gm ( I added raisins,prunes,apricot,crystalized ginger,cherries,walnuts,almonds) all cut in small pieces.

Rum 16tbsp

Mix the above ingridients and keep in a sterilized bottle for at least a week.
Butter 160 gm
Vanilla essence 1 tbsp

Sugar 240 gm ( I added 180 gm)

Eggs 160 gm

Flour 240 gm

Baking powder 1 tsp

Soda bicarbonate 1 tsp

Cardamom 1/4 tsp

Ginger powder 1/4 tsp
Cloves 1/4 tsp
Five spice powder 1 tsp
Caramel 40 gm
1 tbsp molases

Method.
Preaheat the oven to 150°c.
Grease and baseline a 20 cm springform tin fitted with a flat base.

Cream the butter , sugar, vanilla till they are fluffy. Add then eggs one by one and beat each time.
Now to this mix add the flour, baking powder, soda bi carbonnate, and all the spic powder and then carmal water and molases. Don't beat the mixture too much just fold in till everything is mixed well.
Now to this mixture add the rum soaked fruits and fold gently.
Bake for 1 hr and 30 minutes or till the cake is baked.

I keep the cake for atleast a week before i decorate with marzipan . The taste seems to get better if you keep them for maturing for at least a week..
Sending this to Cakes 'n cookies event which is hosted by Sara's Corner and also to Asankhana its Time to jingle again