Eggless Christmas Plum Cake (Vegan recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 35: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Bookmarked recipes
Dish: Eggless Christmas Plum Cake
Here's wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.

This holiday season has turned out to be the best so far with family and friends around. We have family visiting us for the holiday and everyone is just having a blast. It's now past 12:00AM on Christmas morning, gifts are placed under the tree and cookies and milk left out for Santa and carrots for the reindeers. Kids are sleeping, but I'm sure they are dreaming about the presents that Santa's going to leave them. 

I planned to make fruit cake for this Christmas a long time ago, but as with everything else I kept it till the very last minute to make it. The reason being I found Dassana's recipe that doesn't need cakes to be soaked in booze for days and I decided to make it just 2 days before Christmas. So I soaked the dry fruit and nuts in orange juice and rum on Sunday and baked the cakes on Monday.

I've made fruit cakes that were dense and not very appealing before and from that experience I can definitely say that is one of the best fruit cakes I've made. It is soft, fluffy, not too sweet and delicious. My 6 year old super picky eater liked it and that means a lot to me. 

Ingredients:

Dry Fruit & Nuts - 3cups (I used a combination of almonds, pistachios, walnuts, dried cranberries, dried cherries, raisins and apricots)

Orange juice - ½cup (If you don't want to use alcohol, use 1 cup of orange juice)
Rum - ½cup
Orange zest - 1tbsp
Light brown Sugar - 1½cup (alternately use turbinado or regular sugar)
Oil - 1cup (use any flavorless oil, I used canola oil but vegetable oil is a good substitute)
All purpose flour - 1½cups
Whole wheat flour - ¾cup
Baking Powder - ½tsp
Salt - ½tsp
Ground Cinnamon - 1tsp
Ground cloves - ¼tsp
Ground Nutmeg - ¼tsp
Soy Milk - 1cup
Aple cider Vinegar - 2tbsp
Baking Soda - 1tsp
Vanilla Extract - 1tsp

Method:

• Soak the dry fruit and nuts in orange juice and rum for at least 24 hours or more.
• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan or a 3~4 mini loaf pans. Line the bottom of the baking pan(s) with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl,combine brown sugar and oil. Using a whisk beat the mixture until very smooth, about 4~5 minutes.
• Sift flours, baking powder, salt and all the spices, Mix until combined.
• Add the soaked dry fruit mixture along with the orange zest.
• In a measuring jar, combine soy milk and vinegar and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Next add baking soda and vanilla extract. 
• Add soy milk mixture to the cake mixture. Mix well until combined.
• Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

I put the baked cakes in plastic bags and gave them as edible gifts for Christmas.

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 35.