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Vegan Gluten free Christmas Cake Fruit Cake full of nuts, dried fruits, dates, seeds, candied ginger. Soft, Flavorful and great for gifting. Vegan Soyfree Recipe.
I am not sure why fruit cakes have a bad rap. They used to be a treat we would wait for around Christmas. Soft, Sweet, full of fun stuff for us kids I guess. Maybe we just lucked out with a fabulous bakery. 🙂
I make versions of my Spelt spiced fruit cake if not baking a load of cookies every year. This version is adapted from spelt flour version. I use almond flour and rice flour to keep it gluten-free. The cake keeps well refrigerated for a few weeks if you use liquor or a week with orange juice. Serve as is or with a bourbon/rum glaze! Add nuts or seeds that you like, some dates, apricots, cherries. I also added some roasted sunflower seeds and chia seeds, so the cake is also great to snack on.
More gluten-free baking from the blog
- Gluten-free Cinnamon Roll Bread yeast-free.
- Sweet Potato Crumb Cake.
- Gluten-free Brownies
- Sweet Potato Blondies.
- Gluten-free Lemon Donuts
- And many more here
If you make this cake or any of the above gf bakes, let me know how they turned out! Send me pictures, Tag me on social media.
Soak the nuts, seeds, dried and candied fruit in orange juice or juice + liquor.
Whisk all the dry ingredients, them combine with the wet.
Vegan Gluten free Christmas Cake - Fruit Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup orange juice or a combination with liquor, (upto half cup of rum, brandy, whiskey or a mix)
- 1.25 to 1.5 cups dried fruits and nuts, (I use pecans, cashews, walnuts, roasted sunflower seeds, candied ginger, currants, chopped dates, candied orange peel, cherries/apricots etc)
- 1 tbsp chia seeds, (not optional as they help thicken the leftover orange juice. You an use 1.5 tbsp flax seed meal as a sub)
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 2 tbsp oil, (I use organic safflower)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup white rice flour
- 3/4 cup almond flour
- 1/4 cup potato starch
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp citric acid, , optional **
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
- Add juice, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, and chia seeds to a bowl and mix. Let sit refrigerated for a few hours to overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Line a loaf pan with parchment or grease it.
- Take the juice bowl out from the fridge. Add sugar, oil and vanilla to the bowl and mix in until sugar is combined. In another bowl, add the dry ingredients and whisk. (You can omit the citric acid from the dry. I like the air it adds to gluten-free baked goods. See my glutenfree cinnamon roll bread post for details about the use of citric acid)
- Combine the dry and wet and mix to make a batter. Drop in parchment lined pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Check with a toothpick from the center of the cake. it should come out almost clean. Bake longer if needed.
- Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan. Cool completely before slicing (cool lightly covered by a towel). Store on the counter covered for upto 2 days, refrigerate for upto 10, freeze for upto 2 months. If using liquor, you can store the cake on the counter and refrigerator for longer.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi, good day to you, i’m new to your site and i love your recipes . i can only use gluten free flour. i would like to know if i can you use Bob red mill all purpose flour for this recipe and other recipe on this site.
bobs gf blend has a lot of rice flour that dries out while baking. I havent had success with just the blend. You can use half of bobs gf blend and half almond flour as almond flour will add moisture and keep it from drying out.
I juste made your cake and it s perfect. Everybody love it. I used a lot of cranberries and cherries with a orange and lemon juice… yummy! 😋Thank you for your share recipes.🙏😘
I just made this today and it turned out beautifully – absolutely delicious! I was thrilled to find a gluten free version of my favourite Christmas indulgence. Added the citric acid and enjoyed the resulting tang. Thank you, Richa, for a wonderful recipe!
awesome!
I just made this recipe and it baked really well. Sadly, it is sticking to the bottom of my loaf pan and only partially came out of my pan, which is very disappointing. I did grease the pan. I probably should of used parchment paper. Next year!
oh no. i always line the pans with parchment. sometimes the pans lose some of the non stikness with age and some batters tend to stick a bit more than other batters, so i always line the pan. hope it tasted great otherwise
I will definitely be using parchment next time. My fruit and nut mix was heavy on the fruit side, so I think that contributed to sticking. I did freeze the cake for a bit and it helped release a bit more to make it salvageable for Christmas. Despite the problem, the cake tastes amazing. Just how the fruit cakes of my youth, tasted. I will be making this again. Thank you!
awesome! yes the fruit might have caused extra sticking.
Where are people buying the potato starch from?
amazon or whole foods
What should we use citric acid for? I just want to see if I should buy it or not.
I use it to add air into the batter before baking. See write up above the recipe. You can use whiped aquafaba instead
I am going to try and make this recipe in my bread machine one of these days but I was wondering if you could recommend a substitute for the oil? Or does leaving it out not affect the cake except for the crust?
I am not sure if it will work in a bread machine. To sub the oil, you can use smooth nut butter or half smooth nut butter and half applesauce
Can we use the rice flour we get in Indian stores ?
yes, in the same proportion.
Hi Richa,
This is my first comment, thank you for all your time and effort for sending these amazing and nutritious recipes they are truly a wonderful delicacy, happy holidays to all your members 🙂
I tried this yesterday’s & the flavor is amazing, but mine didn’t slice well-crumbled after well cooked. I followed you recipe to a T-should the chia have been ground? I used a silicone loaf pan. I will try again because it was scrumptious even if crumbly!
Try refrigerating it for half an hour and use a serrated knife. It is a pretty sturdy loaf. The edges might be crustier to penetrate, so chilling and a very sharp knife or a serrated knife is helpful to help with easy slicing.
Hello! I just made this cake and it was absolutely delicious. Only problem is that even after refirgerating, it was really crumbly. W hat do you think about adding an egg? Or what would make it stick a little better?
Thanks!
use a really sharp knife to cut through. It should be too crumbly. You can add a sugar icing. That will help moisten the crumb and also hold it together while slicing.