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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.
Thank you Richard for this yummy recipe. , I want to make this gluten free and can’t have potato or tapioca starch. Can I use corn starch instead?
Charu
Yes
How can I use this recipe to make cookies instead of bread?
Try my coconut oil shortbread cookies with dried fruit and pumpkin spice https://www.veganricha.com/vegan-coconut-oil-shortbread-cookies-with-pumpkin-pie-spice/
Can I substitute 3/4 cup gluten free flour (Bob’s Red Mill) for the potato and rice flours? Keeping the almond flour.
Yes that might work. I haven’t use bobs gf flour lately so let me know if they worked
This fruitcake is ah-mazing!!
I added extra fruit like close to 2 cups very pressed down. Baked in 4 mini loaves for gifting. Love this!!!
Thank you for the recipe!
Thank you!!
I made this recipe for the first time, and it turned out perfect! I didn’t have potato starch, so I substituted tapioca flour, and I also used a different variety of fruit. Mainly dried figs, dried apricots, raisins, and pumpkin seeds! It couldn’t have turned out better… The time in the oven of 45 minutes was exactly right, and it came out perfectly baked. I also soaked my fruit in half orange juice half Cointreau and rum mix, which also worked well with the flavour profile.
Sound delicious!!
Out of this world. Thank you. My joints and tastebuds thank you for your outstanding gluten free recipes!
I’m so glad to hear!
Hello – Do you use blanched almonds ground in a blender for the almond flour? Thanks.
Both are the same if you use almond flour made of blanched almonds. That’s what I use
Hi Richa! Is there any way I can sub almond flour for any other flour. I am intolerant to nuts.
You can use a preferred gluten-free baking mix, and omit the baking powder from the recipe if this is included in the blend.
Hey Richa!
A lot fruit cake recipes have you brush the top with rum or brandy every few days. Is this something you can do with this cake, or will it make it wet and crumbly?
try it – i think it will be fine
Hello Richa
Thank you for this recipe. I’ve made it a few times now as friends have demanded it even though they’re not vegan.
Recently, I doubled the ingredients, but kept the brown sugar the same, soaked the fruit in orange juice and used spelt flour. I poured the mixture into a 10” cake tin and baked for an hour.
My non-vegan diabetic family loved it.
Victory 🙂
Going to be making this soon. Can I replace the potato starch with Tapioca starch? Looks amazing – as do all your recipes:)
Yes