Sunday, December 20, 2015

Masala Chai Apricot Fruit Cake



Masala Chai Fruit Cake

As we have a surplus of Apricots this year,  we decided to make all our Christmas Cakes with Apricots.  So we searched all over the net and combined a few recipes to come up with our very own Masala Chai Apricot Fruit Cake.  And best of all it is a butterless cake that is absolutely delicious and moist and just what one would expect a Christmas Cake to be like.

The Recipe:

3 Masala Chai Tea Bags ( brand of your choice)- I used Taj Mahal brand; 500 ml hot water; 60 gms brown sugar; 375 gms maida or all purpose flour; 2 level tsp baking powder; 250 gms cashew bits; 2 tsp cinnamon; 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg; a pinch of salt; 300 gms dried apricots, stoned and chopped into tiny pieces- crack the nuts and extract the kernels-  keep aside for topping.

Soak the tea bags in the 500 ml hot water for 10 minutes or until dark in colour.  Remove bags and soak the apricots in the tea overnight at room temperature.  Next day preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and grease and line  a 9 inch square pan or  use cup cake cases like I did.  Strain the fruit and add to the rest of the ingredients.  Mix to combine.  Add the tea a little by little to the cake mixture, gently stirring until the batter is of a thick, flowing consistency.  Pour into pan, scatter the kernels on top and bake  for about 50 minutes or until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.  

For Cup Cakes: Pour the batter (half full) into the cases and bake at 150 degrees celcius for 15 minutes or until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.






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