Christmas cake - traditional and vegan versions.

Usually at Christmas time my mum goes into a baking frenzy, pumping fruit cake after fruit cake out of her kitchen as her traditional Christmas gift to her friends and one for the family to eat on Christmas day. This year however she has not baked a single thing because she doesn't have a kitchen. She started renovations back in July after the stumps on one side of the house went, and she had to replace them. She also decided to renovate 2 bathrooms, replace all her carpets and tiles, repaint and rip the entire kitchen out to replace with a new one. All of this was meant to be finished in October. 2 months later and she still doesn't have a kitchen...

So making the cake for Christmas day fell to me this year and I made 2 versions. A traditional one that pretty closely follows my mums recipe (I didn't have time to soak the dried fruit in brandy for 2 days, and bake the cake 2 weeks ahead and keep pouring more brandy over it like she does...) and a second cake that I tweaked to be a vegan version. 

Baking times are based on a deep cake pan. If you use a shallow pan or a loaf pan, take 30 minutes off the baking time. Both cakes will keep well for at least a week if stored in an airtight container. Longer if you pour a little brandy over them to keep them moist.

Shortcut version of Mum's fruit cake recipe

• 500g sultanas
• 300g currants
• 150g mixed peel
• 100g raisins
• 100g chopped dried figs
• 100g chopped dried or glace cherries
• 3/4 cup of marmalade
• 1 cup of brandy, rum or sherry (I have also used mead before when it was all we had in the house)
• 250g soft butter
• 2  1/2 cups of plain flour
• 1 tsp powdered nutmeg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 5 large eggs, free range
• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 50g whole almonds to decorate (optional)

To make:

1. Combine the dried fruit, marmalade, spices and brandy in a large mixing bowl. Mix this really well to combine and leave to sit overnight (or a couple of hours at least). Most of the brandy should soak into the fruit.
2. Set the oven to 150C. Prepare your cake tin. Ideally this should be a deep 20cm square or 24cm round tin. To prepare the tins, grease the pans, then line with baking paper. Cut a piece of paper to fit the bottom of the pan, then strips to fit the sides. Try to have a bit of a paper collar sticking up above the edges of the pan.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar till the sugar is dissolved in.
4. In another bowl, beat the eggs together. Slowly add this to the butter mix about half an egg at a time and blend in each time. If you add too much egg at once, the mix will curdle (if it does curdle it is not the end of the world, it is just better not to have it happen).
5. Gently fold the flour into the butter and egg mix. Fold till combined.
6. Add in the dried fruit mix and any brandy that hasn't soaked in. Fold till the fruit is evenly distributed.
7. Pour the mix into your cake pan and flatten with the back of a spoon.
8. If you want to decorate your cake, press the almonds gently onto the top of the batter to make a pattern.
9. Bake the cake on the top shelf for 2 1/2 hours. Insert a skewer or thin knife into the cake. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If not keep checking the cake every 10 minutes till it is done.
10. Cool the cake in the pan.
11. Store the cake in an airtight container till you are ready to use it. You can sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the cake each day if you want to keep the cake a little more moist.



Egg based fruit cake.



A bit drier and lighter in colour than I would like, but still tastes fine.


Vegan version of Mum's fruit cake recipe (note for this version I used gluten free flour. You may need to reduce the liquid and baking soda if using wheat flour)

• 500g sultanas
• 300g currants
• 150g mixed peel
• 100g raisins
• 100g chopped dried figs
• 100g chopped dried or glace cherries
• 3/4 cup of marmalade
• 1 cup of brandy, rum or sherry
• 250g nuttalex
• 2 cups of gluten free all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of rice flour
• 1/2 cup of corn flour
• 1 tsp powdered nutmeg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 200g light muscovado sugar
• 1 1/4 cups of soy milk
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 50g whole almonds to decorate (optional)

To make:

1. Combine the dried fruit, marmalade, spices and brandy in a large mixing bowl. Mix this really well to combine and leave to sit overnight (or a couple of hours at least). Most of the brandy should soak into the fruit.
2. Set the oven to 150C. Prepare your cake tin. Ideally this should be a deep 20cm square or 24cm round tin, but 2 loaf pans will do. To prepare the tins, grease the pans, then line with baking paper. Cut a piece of paper to fit the bottom of the pan, then strips to fit the sides. Try to have a bit of a paper collar sticking up above the edges of the pan.
3. Cream together the nuttalex and sugar till the sugar is dissolved in.
4. In another bowl combine the soy milk with the vinegar and leave to sit a couple of minutes to curdle.
5. Add the baking soda to the soy milk mix. This will foam so make sure the bowl is large enough for the mix to double or even triple in size.
6. Slowly add this to the nuttalex mix and combine thoroughly.
7. Gently fold the flour into the nuttalex and milk mix. Fold till combined.
8. Add in the dried fruit mix and any brandy that hasn't soaked in. Fold till the fruit is evenly distributed.
9. Pour the mix into your cake pan and flatten with the back of a spoon.
10. If you want to decorate your cake, press the almonds gently onto the top of the batter to make a pattern.
11. Bake the cake on the top shelf for 2 1/2 hours. Insert a skewer or thin knife into the cake. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked. If not keep checking the cake every 10 minutes till it is done.
12. Cool the cake in the pan.
13. Store the cake in an airtight container till you are ready to use it. You can sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the cake each day if you want to keep the cake a little more moist.

Vegan gluten free fruit cake

Looks pretty damn good for a gluten free flour cake!

I cut a bit off the end of each cake to see how they went in side. Agneta helped me do a taste test and said that the vegan version was better and more moist than the non vegan version! You can see from the photos that it looks better too.

Next time round I think I would use a dark muscovado sugar to get a bit more colour in the cake and will stick with the vegan version from now on. It worked out much better.

We will be eating this on Christmas eve and Christmas day with brandy butter.

Brandy Butter
This can be spread as a hard sauce on cold fruit cake, or served to slowly melt over hot Christmas pudding. 

• 100g Nuttalex
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 6 tbsp Brandy

1. Blend together nuttalex and 1 cup of the icing sugar till smooth.
2. Alternate adding 2 tbsp Brandy and 1 cup of icing sugar till all is blended in and the mix is pale and creamy.
3. Set in the fridge till you are ready to use it.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with good food and great company!