Made for a special birthday, this recipe is a KEEPER.
Billed as a quick and healthy Christmas cake, it is grain-free and gluten-free. It is delicious and – thanks to soaking the dried fruit – delectably moist. The five eggs make it very light and nutritious.
It requires careful weighing but apart from that, low on faff.
(And thanks to Tayda for careful weighing.).
Use dried fruit of your choice. I went for dried cranberries and sour cherries, and chopped-up dried apricots and dates. Snip with scissors, as the original recipe suggests. Saves on sticky fingers.
I used cassava flour instead of coconut flour. Cassava flour is white and neutral, and made from a root vegetable. Next time I am going to experiment with buckwheat flour because buckwheat is a plant and so less carbs than root veg. (I love buckwheat – but that is for another post).
I used ground almonds as it is equivalent to almond flour/meal. And chopped pecans (chopped walnuts or hazelnuts etc and/or a mix would also work). I did not have vanilla extract and it was fine without (otherwise add 1 teaspoon).
I did not bother glazing it as suggested – and really did not miss it.
Here is the recipe, slightly simplified for my own use.
Recipe
- 500 grams mixed dried fruits
- 75 grams pecans or walnuts
- 1 orange (zest and juice)
- 125 grams ground almonds
- 67 grams coconut flour (or cassava or buckwheat)
- 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or more!)
- 5 eggs
- 50 grams butter or coconut oil, melted (I used butter).
How to
- Soak the fruit in hot boiled water for 15 mins then drain it well.
- Line a 20 cm – 23cm cake tin
- Preheat oven to 150 C
- Combine the ground almonds, cassava flour, bicarb, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.
- Add grated orange zest and chopped nuts.
- In a separate (smaller) bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, and the squeezed orange juice from your zested orange.
- Gradually stir in the above wet mixture INTO the DRY mixture. The cake batter is quite thick.
- Mix in the soaked fruit with a big spoon so the fruit is well distributed. Thanks to the soaked fruit, the batter will now be less thick.
- Spoon the cake batter in to the lined baking tin and press down with the back of a spoon to eliminate any pockets of air and level the top
- Bake the cake for between 60 – 70 minutes, or until the centre feels firm to touch or an inserted skewer comes out dry. If it looks at risk of getting a bit burned, cover the top with parchment paper.
Thank you Monique at Nourish Everyday!
Real Food Lover 