Mixed Nuts Cake

 Mixed Nuts Cake

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?

Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda;Combine butter, rind and sugar in small bowl; beat with electric mixer until light and fluffy…

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions. Mixture will curdle at this point but will come together later…

Using wooden spoon, stir in sifted dry ingredients and milk in two batches, start and end with flour…

stir in juice and nuts…

Spoon mixture into prepared pan and spread the nut topping on the leveled cake. Bake cake for 30 – 40 mins…

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Mixed Nuts Cake

Author: Maria Jose Martin

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: Greek

Serves: 14

 

Ingredients

• Unsalted Butter – 125 gms, softened
• Finely grated Lemon rind – 1 tsp
• Caster sugar – 1¼ cups / 275 gms (refer notes for substitution)
• Eggs – 3 @ room temp
• Plain flour (maida) – 1.5 cup
• Bicarbonate of soda – ¼ tsp
• Baking powder – 1¼ tsp
• Milk – ½ cup @ room temp
• Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
• Pistachios – 2 tbsp, chopped finely (refer notes)
• Walnuts – 2 tbsp, chopped finely (refer notes)
• Almonds skinned – 2 tbsp, chopped finely (refer notes)
• Icing sugar – 2 tsp

Nut Topping

• Pistachios – 2 tbsp, chopped coarsely
• Walnuts – 2 tbsp, chopped coarsely
• Almonds skinned – 2 tbsp, chopped coarsely

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 C, 10 mins before baking. Line the base and side of deep 22 cm -round cake pan with baking/parchment paper.
2. Combine all ingredients for nut topping in a bowl.
3. Combine butter, rind and sugar in small bowl; beat with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions. Mixture will curdle at this point but will come together later.
4. Using wooden spoon, stir in sifted dry ingredients and milk in two batches, start and end with flour; stir in juice and nuts.
5. Spoon mixture into prepared pan, level surface of cake mixture with wet metal spatula. Spread the nut topping on the leveled cake.
6. Bake cake for 30 – 40 mins. If the top begins to brown faster, cover the cake loosely with aluminium foil and bake.
7. Stand cake in pan 5 mins and the turn onto wire rack; turn top-side up to cool. Dust cake with sifted icing sugar for serving

Notes

Nuts were measured whole and then chopped. I used two 6 inch round tin for baking the above qty and I also got 6 std size cupcakes. My cakes were read in 25 – 30 mins and cupcakes took 15-17 mins.You can mix and match varieties and quantities of nuts to suit your taste. It was a bit too nutty for my taste. If you also prefer a slightly milder version of nuts, you can reduce the qty of nuts topping to ½ – 1 tbsp each.
Caster sugar substitution – process 1 cup granulated sugar (regular sugar) in a food processor/mixer until fine, but don’t powder it like icing sugar.
The cake can be stored in an airtight container @ room temp for 2-3 days.