Have you soaked the fruits for the Christmas cake? Before that let me ask you this.. are you planning to make Christmas fruit cake? Then what are you waiting for, go ahead and soak the fruits right away! I've been soaking the fruits for a year now, yes you heard it right. As soon as I use one batch I soak the next one, so it's been resting on my kitchen counter for a year, waiting to be used.
The truth is, most of the time I've seen people making faces when fruit cake is offered. Not many people are big fans of it, myself included. So here's an alternate option for you, Mixed Nuts Cake. If you like nuts, then you'll enjoy this cake. I should say this cake is loaded with nuts with a subtle lemony flavour. It's moist and flavourful.
I got this recipe from Australian Women's Weekly Baking book. This cake is a Greek New Year's cake called Vasilopita. This recipe is traditionally made with a single coin baked into it, legend having it that the person who is served the slice containing the coin will have good luck in the coming year. Interesting, right? Now I'm not quite sure whether you should insert a coin into it… I remember my brother swallowing a 25 paise coin during his school days and I didn't see anything “lucky”associated with it ;)
Anyways, coin or no coin, this is a good cake which can be made for Christmas, New Year or just for your evening tea time. Ready to give it a try?
Oh, that looks delicious! My grandmother used to make a cake similar to this when I was a kid, using cashews, pistachios, almonds, and walnuts. Thank you for the recipe.
Hi Maria ,
Your recipes are too good. I keep recommending my friends your blog . Even my mom took help of your recipe to bake her cake.She was very impressed . Now coming to this recipe can I cut the milk and instead use orange juice ?
Regards,
Cini Mevin
Hi Cini,
Thanks a lot for your kind words :) Really great to know that your mom also tries out the recipes posted here, please do convey my regards and thanks to her also. I havent tried substituting milk, but I guess you can give it a try and see. All the best!!
Wish you a very Happy New Year!
Cheers
Maria
Hi maria.. This Cake looks delicious:-) I am a vegetarian and I wanted to know if the cake could be made eggless??
Hi Sindu,
I’m not sure how to convert this cake to an eggless one, sorry :((
If you want you can check out other eggless cakes in the recipe index on the site. Hope you find something interesting!
Cheers
Maria
This looks delicious, I will have to make it for my holiday table with my family! I would like to add, about the baking soda, when using buttermilk you use both baking soda and powder, perhaps the lemon & milk turn into a buttermilk.
Thanks Kathy :) I do hope your family enjoys this cake.
Thanks for sharing that info about baking soda.
Cheers
Maria
Nice Recipe chechi… I’ll try this… I like nuts in ma cake….
I have a doubt. why do we add baking soda to cake , even though there is baking powder in it? If i dont prefer to add baking soda, can i just use baking powder? Will the result be same? What proportion should I use in general? Thanks in advance chechi…
Thanks Ritu :)
I just followed the recipe to T Ritu, it called for baking soda, so I added :). If you’ve tried other cake recipes by substituting baking soda successfully, then it should work here too..
Let me know if you try this cake..
Cheers
Maria