CHRISTMAS PIE WITH DRIED FRUITS AND NUTS

The most festive and richest baking for Christmas is a Christmas cake. Although it is time consuming, but very tasty!

A Christmas cake or, as it is also called, a Christmas cake or pudding is a very rich festive baking, which is not something that is baked in advance, but even prepare products for this baking long before the beloved holiday. This Christmas baking has English roots, and who, if not English, knows all the subtleties of making this delicious cake .

For starters, that is, a few days, or even better - at least a week before baking, dried fruits must be poured with alcohol and allowed to soak completely. Then these dried fruits are put in the dough, and the alcohol in which they insisted is sent there. Muffins are baked for a long time, but at a lower temperature than ordinary baking. Then these muffins or one big pie should ripen, and this takes time and, as it turns out, the more time to give this baking to ripen, the tastier and richer its taste will be. It’s better to give the muffins a ripening month to treat yourself to this classic English pastry with a rich taste and incredible aroma during the Christmas holidays.

Ingredients

• Wheat flour - 170 g
• Whole grain flour - 55 g
• Butter - 225 g
• White sugar - 125 g 
• Dark sugar - 125 g 
• Chicken eggs - 4 pcs.
• Salt - 1/3 tsp 
• Cinnamon - 1/3 tsp 
• Ginger - 1/3 tsp
• Cardamom - 1/3 tsp 
• Clove - 1/3 tsp
• Dried fruits - 350 g 
• Nuts - 200 g 
• Dark rum - 400 ml 
• Dark honey - 1 tbsp. 
• Zest with one orange
• vanilla

So, to make a Christmas cake with dried fruit.s and nuts Christmas Cake Ingredients with Dried Fruits and Nuts

step 1  As I said, first you need to pour dried fruit with alcohol. I took for this a dark rum, it has a good spicy aroma, for such a festive baking - what you need! We put dried fruits in a jar and pour about 300-350 ml of rum. Of the dried fruits, I had dark and light raisins, dried apricots and prunes. We put the jar in the refrigerator for a week and shake it once a day.

step 2 Pour dried fruit with alcohol

step 3 On the day of baking, dry the nuts in a pan. I took almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts. The husks separated from almonds and walnuts will be removed.

step 4 Fry nuts

step 5 Salt with dried fruit alcohol, and mix the dried fruit with nuts.

step 6 Combine nuts with dried fruits 

step 7 In a separate bowl, mix both types of sifted flour, salt and all the spices.

step 8:Combine flour, salt and spices 

step 9:In another bowl, beat soft butter with sugar. 

step 10:Add butter and sugar  

step 11:Add the zest of orange to the whipped mixture. I did not rub the orange itself, but used the purchased zest.

step 12:Put the zest

step 13:Now add honey, vanilla extract and eggs one at a time, whipping the mixture after each egg. In parallel with each egg we introduce a little flour mixture.

step  14:Add eggs and honey 

step 15:At the very end, we introduce a mixture of dried fruits with nuts into the dough and mix gently, at the end pour the rum that remains from the dried fruits, and mix again.

step 16:Put dried fruit in the dough. 

step 17:Grease cupcake molds with butter and powder with flour. I divided the dough into 3 parts to bake in several forms. I did this in order to try out this festive baking with a different maturity. 

step 18:I distributed the dough into forms and, covering them with foil, put it into a large form, which I filled with water to the middle of the small forms. The third mold I had was in a separate bowl. In this form, we send the form to the oven, preheated to 150 degrees and the oven for 1-1.5 hours. Then reduce the temperature to 130 degrees and bake another 2.5-3 hours. Readiness, as always, is checked with a wooden skewer.

step 19:Cover the mold with foil 

step 20:These are Christmas mini cakes or cupcakes. The smallest came out weighing about 600 grams, and those that are larger, 850 grams each. Due to the fact that they were covered with foil, they turned out to be of a beautiful color and did not burn at all, but baked evenly.

step 21:Bake cupcakes 

step 22:Let them cool completely and remove from the forms. Turn over and make holes with a wooden skewer. Pour the remaining rum into these holes, but not the whole, we will leave it for impregnation the next time.

Enjoy Your Christmas party..