The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
It’s time to make this years Christmas Cake.
This Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake is a rich, dense fruit cake full of deep, warming flavours and not only great as a traditional Christmas cake but is great for any celebration including birthday cake, Christening cake, wedding cake… The list is endless. I have made this lots of times for many events and apart from ‘I can’t believe the cake is… gluten free… vegan…‘ there are always complements on the flavour and texture.
Allergy Information – Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake
Gluten Free, Vegan Christmas Cake is gluten-free and vegan as well as… celery free, coconut free, garlic free, lupin free, mustard free, nightshade free, onion free, peanut free, sesame free, soya free, tree nut free*.
*For tree nut free, do not use tree nuts in your cake.
Top Tips – Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake
You can be really flexible with the type of fruit you use. You can even add chopped nuts and mixed peel – as long as the total weight is 1250 grams.
This Christmas Cake is super easy and super tasty. You can make this cake up to three months in advance (or more) before eating or decorating and the cake also freezes well. Once made (if you are using alcohol) you can feed it with alcohol once every two weeks to keep it moist – sherry, triple sec and brandy work well. Although the flavours and textures will mature on storage, the cake still tastes great the day it is baked.
This recipe will make one 22 cm square cake or 24 cm round cake. If you would like a smaller cake just half the recipe and cook for approximately two hours.
Once you have made your Gluten Free, Vegan Christmas Cake – Decorate it! Make it as simple or as complex as you like!
Some of the ingredients in this key Christmas recipe are some of my core store cupboard essentials. Gluten-free flour blend and dried fruit are key to great baking. Always great to have on hand! Find out what else is on my regular shopping list with my FREE Store Cupboard Essentials Cheat Sheet. Get it now! Just click the button below, sign-up and download.
Recipe – Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake
Difficulty easy to medium
Serves lots – depends on the size of the slices
Preparation time 30 mins
Cooking time 3 hours (excluding time to soak fruit overnight)
Ingredients – Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake
1250 grams (1.25 kg) dried fruit (I used 500 grams sultanas, 200 grams currants, 200 grams chopped dried dates, 200 grams dried cranberries, 150 grams chopped glace cherries)
500 millilitres dry sherry (or black tea – normal tea or redbush both work well – if making an alcohol free cake)
250 grams vegan margarine at room temperature
180 grams unrefined sugar
6 tablespoons molasses
500 grams gluten free plain flour blend
1 teaspoon baking powder
250 millilitres dairy free milk of your choice
2 tablespoons mixed spice
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Optional: alcohol (e.g. sherry, triple sec, brandy) to ‘feed’ the cake before decorating
Method – Gluten Free Vegan Christmas Cake
1. Put the dried fruit in a bowl and add the sherry (or tea) and leave covered overnight in the fridge
2. Preheat oven to 150 C (fan) or gas mark 2 and grease and line the baking tin with greaseproof paper. When lining the sides make sure that the liner is around double the height of the baking tin. This will provide some protection to the cake as it is in the oven for a long time
3. Cream together the margarine and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy (an electric whisk is good for this)
4. Fold in the molasses, flour, dairy free milk, mixed spice and nutmeg until well combined
5. Stir in the soaked fruit and any sherry left in the bowl until evenly mixed
6. Pour the mixture into the lined and greased tin (square 22 cm, round 24 cm, ). (If you don’t plan to ice you can top the cake with flaked almonds at this stage)
7. Bake at 150 C or gas mark 2 for approximately three hours (until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean). Check the cake after two and a half hours
8. Allow to cool and remove from the tin
9. If you wish to store the cake to mature and feed with alcohol wrap the cake in two layers of greaseproof paper and two layers of tin foil and in a cake tin or somewhere where it won’t get knocked! Keep it somewhere cool.
10. If you are going to feed the cake with alcohol add 4-6 tablespoons (or as much as the cake will take every two weeks or so. Prick the cake with a skewer to make small holes for the alcohol to soak in. Store until you are ready to decorate (upcoming!!!)
11. The cake will keep for months if it is well wrapped in two layers of greaseproof paper (laid out at 90 degrees to one another – see picture), two layers of foil (laid out at 90 degrees to one another). Remember to store it somewhere cool and dry.
