Egg Less Fruit Cake

This New Year fruit cake recipe is not only egg less but its dairy free too.
As always in the cakes i make i often use a healthy mix of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. so it is with this cake.
the cake has a wonderful fragrant aroma and is light, crumbly, moist and too delicious with notes of rum in it.
for baking the cake, the times may vary from oven to oven. it took me approx 1 hour 45 minutes to bake the cake at 170 degrees C, initially. later i increased the oven temperature to 180 degrees C.

Ingredients
for soaking in the rum:
·½ cup raisins and ½ cup chopped cashews
·¼ cup chopped citrus peels(mainly orange and sweet lime)
·8-9 apricots (dry or fresh)
·½ cup chopped seedless dates
·¼ cup tutti fruity
·9-10 glazed cherries, sliced
·1 cup rum or 1 cup orange juice or apple juice
for the main cake batter
· 1 and ½ cup all purpose flour(maida),
· ¾ cup whole wheat flour/atta,
· 1 and ½ cup demurer sugar or brown sugar or powdered sugar or 300 gms demurer or brown sugar or 335 gms powdered sugar
· 1 cup oil or melted butter
· 1 cup soy milk or any nut milk or dairy milk,
· 2 tbsp apple cider or regular vinegar
· 1 tsp baking soda
· ½ tsp baking powder
· 1 tsp vanilla extract
the spice mix:
· 1 inch or 1.5 inches cinnamon
· 2 cloves
· 2 cardamom
· 2 all spice
· a generous pinch or two of grated nutmeg

Method:
soaking the dry fruits:
1. firstly chop all the dry fruits and take them in a bowl or a jar. pour rum in the bowl or jar.
2. cover and let the dry fruits soak for 12 or 24 hours.
3. in between stir or shake so that all the dry fruits get soaked properly.
preparing the cake:
1. in a dry grinder, grind the whole spices. keep aside.
2. prepare a loaf pan or a round cake pan. i used a 6.5 inches round pan.
3. grease the cake pan lightly with oil. you can also line the pan with butter paper.
4. preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
5. sieve the flours, baking powder and the powdered spice mix.
6. add oil and demurer sugar and mix well.
7. keep some sliced cherries for adding on top of the cake.
8. mix some flour with the cherries and keep aside.
9. add the soaked dry fruits and rum. stir and mix uniformly.
10. in a bowl or mug add soy milk. now add apple cider and stir gently.
11. add baking soda and stir. add this frothing mixture to the cake batter.
12. add vanilla extract. stir and mix quickly but uniformly. pour in the cake pan.
13. shake the pan lightly so that the cake is spread evenly throughout the whole pan.
14. place the sliced cherries on the top.
15. bake in the preheated oven for 180 degrees C for 1:45 minutes or more or less depending on your oven.
16. either wrap the New Year fruit cake in a cling film or store in a container.