Delhiwale: Jolly’s yummy X-mas cake | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Delhiwale: Jolly’s yummy X-mas cake

Hindustan Times | ByMayank Austen Soofi
Dec 24, 2020 05:21 AM IST

A woman’s time-tested recipe of her homemade festive delicacy.

One way to salvage this cursed year from becoming a complete annus horribilis is to make Jolly Sabherwal’s super yummy Christmas cake for Christmas Eve.

At 70, the Kerala native is a familiar figure in the city for having been a long-time manager of a much-loved bookstore.(HT Photo)
At 70, the Kerala native is a familiar figure in the city for having been a long-time manager of a much-loved bookstore.(HT Photo)

“I have already made it 4-5 times since the last week for friends,” she says, beaming, on the WhatsApp video chat from her first floor flat in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj.

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At 70, the Kerala native is a familiar figure in the city for having been a long-time manager of a much-loved bookstore. She would be always in one of her gorgeous saris (she has 100 saris!).

This year too Ms Sabherwal is determined to dress in one of her “christmassy saris” for the midnight mass, though it will be held online due to the coronavirus pandemic. She will attend it with her husband, Anil. They have a love story going back to Bombay in 1974, when Anil, a lieutenant in the Indian Navy, broke his right leg and was admitted to INHS Asvini, the naval hospital, where he was looked after by a “sister-in-charge”, a lieutenant in the Indian Army, who was Jolly (then Thomas), a fresh graduate from the College of Nursing at Armed Forces Medical College in Pune.

“It was as a nursing student that I learnt how to bake this cake in the hostel mess with other girls.” The next decade was spent perfecting the recipe. It’s now here for you to bake.

Recipe — For 2.5kg cake

Ingredients

Plain flour – 500gm

Butter – 500gm

Sugar – 500gm

Eggs – 1 dozen

Currants – 250gm

Sultanas, raisins, figs, cherries, orange peel – 100gm each (cleaned and chopped finely; ideally soaked for a month in rum/sherry)

Candied ginger – 50gm

Almonds, cashews – 100gm each

Chopped mixed spices (cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg) and shahjeera – 2 teaspoons each

Grated orange and lemon rinds – 1 teaspoon each

Caramel syrup of 250gm sugar

Vanilla essence – 2 teaspoons

Baking powder – 2 teaspoons

Method

Sieve flour with mixed spices and baking powder. Whisk butter and sugar till creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beat well. Add flour and mix well. Stir in the caramel and all the other ingredients. Line the baking tin with butter paper. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for one hour. Then reduce to 150 degrees and bake for another half hour. Cake’s ready.

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