You have to start soaking the dried fruits in rum at least a day in advance. You can leave them to soak in rum upto a month or year. If you don’t want to use rum you can boil the dried fruits in orange juice for 5 minutes to soften them. Cool them down and use as required.

Preheat oven to 180 degree C (360 degree F). Line a 8 inch or 9 inch round cake pan with parchment paper. Grease it slightly with oil and set aside.

Make caramel. Take a frying pan, add sugar and cook till it gets caramelised. For making smooth caramel, don't stir the sugar with spoon or spatula instead just swirl the pan which makes all the sugar get golden in colour. Once the sugar turns dark amber in colour. Add in ¼ cup water and swirl the pan again till it gets smooth. Be careful when you add water to the hot caramel as it may splatter on you. Set aside to cool.

Mix plain flour with salt, dried spice powders, baking soda and baking powder. Mix well and set aside.

Take curd, milk, oil, vanilla and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix till sugar is melted. Add in dry ingredients which we have mixed earlier, soaked dried fruits and caramel. Mix gently to form a smooth batter.

Transfer the batter in the prepared baking pan. Place the cake pan inside oven and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Insert a tooth pick to check whether the cake is baked or not. If the tooth pick comes out clean then the cake is baked. Else bake longer. When you press the top of the cake gently it should spring back. During the mid way of baking, If you see the plum cake is getting too dark in colour. Tent a foil or parchment paper on top loosely. This prevents the cake from getting too dark or burnt on top.