EGGLESS FRUIT AND NUT CAKE

Last year I made Eggless Christmas Fruit Cake with mashed potatoes and condensed milk as replacement for eggs. This year I wanted to try a simplified and easy version of fruit cake for Christmas.

Recipe inspired from here with some modifications.

Ingredients:

Chopped Fruits*	1 cup
Chopped Nuts *	1 cup
All Purpose Flour	1.75 cups
Sugar	1 cup
Butter	1/2 cup
Baking soda	1 tsp
Salt	1/4 tsp
Orange zest	1 tsp
Orange Juice	1/2 cup
Water	1.5 cups
Vanilla extract	1 tsp
Cinnamon powder	1/4 tsp
Nutmeg powder	1/2 tsp
Cardomom	4 pods
Cloves	4

* Chopped Fruits: Mix of raisins, apricot, dates, cranberry,prune (Atleast 3)
* Chopped Nuts: Cashews, Almonds,Walnut


Procedure:
1) Add 1.5 cup of water to the chopped fruits and cook in medium heat for 10 minutes. Cook in a closed sauce pan

2) While it is still hot add butter to the fruit mixture and mix well

3) Add 1/2 cup of orange juice and vanilla extract and allow to cool
4) Take 1/4 of sugar and powder together with cloves and cardamom seeds (If you have powdered cloves and cardomom, skip this step)
5) In another bowl mix all the dry ingredients (All pupose flour, baking soda and sugar)

6) Add nutmeg, cinnamon powder and orange zest
7) Mix both the dry and wet ingredients together (Do not over mix)

8) Now gently fold in the chopped nuts
9) Pour this into a greased bundt pan

10) Bake in a preheated oven of 350F for 35 - 40 minutes

Notes:
Grate the peel of one orange to get the orange zest
Orange juice can be omitted and replaced with water

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the readers