Soak the dried fruits in Rum, in an air-tight glass container and keep in a cool, dry place for two weeks. Every couple of days, shake/stir.
For the mixed spice– In a blender, put all the ingredients for the mixed spice except ginger powder and grind to a fine, dry powder. Do not use water. If your blender doesn’t have a smaller setting to grind spices, you can also prepare this powder by hand in a mortar. Set aside.
To this powder, add your ginger powder and mix well. The lovely fragrant mixed spice is ready. You don’t need to use all of it in the cake. Adjust according to your taste as it’s quite strong. Store the rest in an air-tight container.
On the day of baking the cake, strain the dried-fruit of Rum and preserve the flavorful alcohol. Coat the dry fruits with around 2 tbsn of plain flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom in the cake batter.
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C.
In a bowl, take the sugar and butter and beat till the mixture looks creamy and fluffy.
Add in your eggs one by one, beating the batter lightly after adding each one. Don’t worry if your batter curdles at any point because of all the liquid present in it. That won’t affect the final outcome.
Add 3 tbsn of the preserved Rum, Orange zest, Orange juice and lemon extract to the batter. Mix well.
Add the soaked dry-fruits and chopped nuts to this mixture and mix gently until well-combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, ground almonds, mixed spice and baking powder.
Finally add this flour mixture to your prepared batter and fold in everything until it’s all well-combined. The final batter will be quite thick and sticky than your usual cake batter. So do not worry! That’s the way it is supposed to be.
Grease your bundt pan with a thin layer of butter and also sprinkle some flour all over.
Spoon in your batter and with a spatula, level it until even and smooth.
Bake for around 1 hour at 160 degrees C. Do not open the door to check before 20-25 minutes at all. After that, open and insert a toothpick in the middle. If it comes out clean then your cake is ready. If the middle still seems soft and uncooked, keep baking till done, checking every 5-6 minutes with the toothpick.
Let the cake sit in warm oven for 10 mins but with its door open.
Once your cake has cooled down a bit, put a large plate on top of your bundt pan and in a quick motion, invert it so that your cake gently falls into the plate.
With a pastry brush, coat the preserved Rum all over your cake. Do this for 2-3 times over the next couple of days. Store your un-cut cake wrapped in a cling film, on room temperature.
When you feel that the cake has matured and soaked in all the flavors well, cut your beautiful, moist and fragrant fruit cake and enjoy it for many more days to come!!
