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Low Fat Vegan Christmas Cake Recipe

This rich fruit cake is just unbelievable : it it made without eggs, butter or margarine or oil, has no added sugar, yet it tastes just as delicious and decadent as you would expect any good Christmas cake to. The magic trick here is to replace the butter-sugar-egg mixture with dates blended with water. Using wholemeal flour further increases the fibre content, making this Christmas cake healthier. I used mixed vine fruit with peel, but the peel does contain sugar. To keep it really sugar free, stick to mixed vine fruit : sultanas, raisins and currants, and be sure to choose those with no added sugar. Also, I chose to decorate the cake with some home-made, low sugar vegan marzipan on the top, but beware that this would also increase the sugar content, unless you make your marzipan with xylitol.

Customer Rating:
4.5 (13 votes)

Posted by: michael
On:

Cuisine

British

Time

1 - 2 hrs

Skill Level

Newbie

Serves

12

Courses etc.

Baking Sweet
Christmas Recipes

You will need

IngredientAdd
250g pitted dates More products
1 cup or 250ml water
100g almonds More products
175g wholemeal wheat flour OR More products
175g wholegrain kamut flour OR More products
175g wholegrain spelt flour More products
1 Tbsp baking powder More products
1 Tbsp mixed spice More products
500g mixed vine fruit (raisins, sultanas and currants) More products
5 Tbsp or 75ml orange juice (freshly squeezed from one orange) More products
5 Tbsp or 75ml brandy or liquor of your choice, or more orange juice for an alcohol free cake
Optional:
Earl Grey Tea OR More products
Breakfast Tea More products

Need help converting measurements? View our recipe measurement conversion tables here.

Method

  • If you have the time, soak the mixed vine fruit overnight in about a cup of strong Earl Grey or Breakfast tea. The next day, make sure to drain them well before making the cake.
  • Preheat your oven at 180C/350F or 150C/300F if you have a fan oven.
  • Put the dates and the water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for a couple of minutes before taking off the heat. Set aside to cool.
  • While the dates are cooking, spread the almonds on a baking tray and toast then in your hot oven for 7 minutes or until they become just fragrant. Take great care not to burn them. Allow them to cool, then roughly chop them : you can do this either in a food processor, or by placing the cooled toasted almonds in a food bag and repeatedly gently bashing them with a rolling pin until your reach the desired size for the almond pieces.
  • In a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder and mixed spice. Mix to combine.
  • The dates and date water should now be cool enough to handle, transfer them to a blender and blend until reasonably smooth. Add to the flour mixture, along with the chopped toasted almonds, vine fruit, orange juice and Brandy, if using.
  • Mix gently until everything is well combined into a thick dough. Spoon into a prepared cake tin (I used a 19 cm / 7 1/2 inch cake tin) and bake for about 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
  • Allow the cake to cool completely (several hours, or even overnight) before decorating it if you choose to.
  • The undecorated cake will keep for well over a year if wrapped in 2 layers of parchment paper, then aluminium foil and kept in a cool cupboard. Traditionally, the top tier of wedding fruit cakes were kept for the Christening of the couple's first child.

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