Soaking dried fruit for a Kolkata Christmas cake: what to use and how long

Here is how to put the mix together, and which nuts go in with it.

Bara Din, and a city that bakes

Kolkata calls Christmas Bara Din, the big day, and it keeps it like few Indian cities do. Park Street is lit up, the Anglo-Indian families of Bow Barracks keep their own long traditions, and the city’s old bakeries are known for their December fruit cakes.

Plenty of Bengali homes that do not celebrate Christmas in any other way still buy or bake a plum cake in December. For those who bake it at home, the cake starts not in the oven but with a jar of soaking fruit.

Which dried fruits to soak

A good fruit cake has a mix of sweet, tart and chewy. These are the ones we keep for it:

• Golden kishmish. Regular Dakh is the backbone of the mix: sweet, cheap and soft once soaked.
• Black raisins. Black Kismis gives the dark colour and deeper flavour people expect in a plum cake.
• Cranberries. Cranberry adds sharpness that stops the cake tasting only of sugar.
• Red cherries. Red Cherries bring the bright red flecks. Halve or quarter them.
• Apricots. Turkish Apricot, chopped into raisin-sized pieces, adds a soft, tangy chew.

Tutti-frutti and candied orange peel are common in Kolkata cakes too. We do not stock them, so pick them up locally if you want them. Dates and figs also work in a richer cake.

How much for one cake

That is a little over 400 g of fruit. Families who like a very dark, dense cake push it towards equal weights of fruit and flour or more. If you are baking several cakes, buy 250 g packs of each and scale up.

How long to soak

This depends on what you soak in.

• Rum or brandy. Many families start a month or more before Christmas, sometimes much earlier. Use a clean glass jar with a tight lid, cover the fruit with the spirit, and shake it now and then. The alcohol keeps it safe at room temperature for weeks.
• Orange juice, apple juice or strong tea. For an alcohol-free cake, soak overnight, or up to two or three days in the fridge. Juice-soaked fruit does not keep like spirit-soaked fruit, so do not leave it on the kitchen shelf.
• Last-minute. Simmer the fruit in juice for five minutes and leave it to cool for an hour. It is not the same as a long soak, but it plumps the fruit well.

Whichever you choose, drain the fruit before it goes into the batter, and toss it in a spoonful of the flour so it does not sink.

Nuts for the cake

Walnut is the classic plum cake nut. Walnut Kernels Four Pieces are already broken small, so they need only a rough chop and cost less than halves. Add them straight to the batter; nuts are not soaked with the fruit, or they turn soft.

Chopped cashew or almond is a good second nut. Toast any nut lightly first for more flavour. A little dalchini and jaifal, grated fresh, goes into many recipes too; both are on our spice shelf.

Buying for Christmas in Kolkata

Delivery to Kolkata from our counter in Rajasthan usually takes 4–6 days, so order in November or the first days of December if you want a long soak. December in Kolkata is cool and dry, which is kind to stored dried fruit, but keep opened packs airtight all the same.

Delivery is free on every order, and orders start at ₹1,000. You can check today’s dry fruit prices in Kolkata, browse our berry shelf, or read what kishmish, munakka and dakh actually mean before you pick your raisins.

Questions people ask