Apple & Raisins Cake - Christmas Baking!!

I find Apples to be one of the most attractive fruit. Living in the city has given me the luxury of choosing what variety of apple to eat, and what variety to bake. Apples are available through the year but there is something about baking apples during the fall/winter season. I added tea soaked raisins for the Christmas-sy effect in this cake. The sweet aroma of this cake just filled up the whole house as it was baking, and i was mighty excited when it turned out into this gorgeous golden colour.

It is soft, moist with a lovely citrus kick from the plump tea-soaked raisins. And my! oh my!! the aroma of the cake is just so inviting you wanna take a bite every time you want get a whiff of it. I used apple Himachali for this cake. You can use any apple, especially the ones that are close to getting spoilt.

I used tea to soak the raisins, and somehow it worked! It worked a nice citrus effect on the raisins and it was good. You can go the trusted route of soaking it in rum for sure, but if you don't want to go the rum-route, try tea..:D

The hint of nutmeg in fruit cakes is just lovely, and especially in this cake somehow the spice elevated the cake. I took out a cup of the batter before folding in the raisins and made a triple heart cake for my son. The plain apple cake was good, but the tea soaked raisins definitely made all the difference to the cake. 

Do try it and see for yourselves, like it's said, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". Enjoy!!!

Ingredients:

1 Cup - Plain Flour

1 Tsp - Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp - Baking Soda

2 - Eggs

3 Tbsp - Plain Curd/Yogurt

1 Tsp - Real Vanilla Essence

1/3 Cup - Sugar

1/2 Cup - Canola Oil

1/2 Tsp - Nutmeg powder

1 Cup - Apple grated

1 Cup - Raisins soaked in tea

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Prepare a round cake tin and keep aside. 

Put the first three ingredients in a mixer and blitz a couple of time, then transfer it to a bowl. 

Add the eggs, the sugar, nutmeg powder, vanilla essence and yogurt and blitz till it's all well combined. 

Now add the dry ingredients into the mixer and blitz till everything comes together and the batter is smooth.

Transfer the batter into a bowl, fold in the apple and the raisins and baked it in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, at 180 degree C for 30 minutes, and remaining 10 minutes at 150 degree C.

Once done, cool the cake in the pan till the base is completely cool to touch.

Transfer to a serving plate and cut into slices and enjoy.