Vegan Christmas Fruitcake

Oh, Lordy. I’m one year late in making this cake! I wanted to make a fruitcake last year after I had such a great success with my Fabulous Fruitcake Cookies. And I had promised more than one of you that it would be “soon.” Well, better late than not, that’s for sure! But I WISH I had made this yummy cake sooner…

There are no weirdly-colored, dried fruits in here. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? Green cherries? I don’t think so. Not in MY fruitcake! But have you ever eaten those so-called fruits? They’re terrible. Stripped of all their nutritional goodness, bleached and then dyed with food coloring and laden with sugar and/or corn syrup. Yuk. There is also usually something called citron in fruitcakes. I’m sure the fruit, in its native form, is good but again… they decimate it nutritionally for fruitcakes and it is not tasty at all. No wonder fruitcakes have gotten a bum rap! Nothing but whole food goodness is what this version delivers.

THIS fruitcake is sooooo yummy. And, yes, there is booze in it. But the alcohol does cook off when it’s baked. Of course, you could also brush on more AFTER it’s baked if you want to make it a grown-up holiday treat. Can you tell by the photos how moist this cake is? Let me tell you, I had to take my photos really fast before it was all gone!

Ingredients:
IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Big apologies, I left out a crucial ingredient when this was first published. If you’ve already printed this out, please ADD 1½ teaspoons baking soda to your dry ingredients. Yikes. So sorry for any mishaps! 🙁

~ dry

• 2 cups tightly-packed, blanched almond flour
• 1¾ cups flour of your choice (I used whole spelt flour, but you could also use any gluten-free mix, whole wheat, etc.)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 TBS flax meal
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch of cloves
• 1½ tsp baking soda

~ wet

• 2½ cups dried fruits (I used ½ cup each of sweet cherries, goji berries, cranberries, currants and golden raisins)
• 1 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed is best!)
• 1 cup rum, brandy or bourbon (I used dark rum)
• ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• ½ cup molasses (I used sorghum molasses, which has a wonderfully mellow flavor)
• ¼ cup pure maple syrup

Directions:

1. Soak the fruit overnight in the alcohol and orange juice.
2. Preheat oven to 350° F.
3. Lightly grease 2 standard-sized loaf pans (or you can use mini-loaves or one large bundt pan).
4. Mix all dry ingredients together.
5. Add the soaked fruits, with the alcohol they’ve soaked in, and the remaining wet ingredients to the dry. Mix well to combine. The dough will be very thick. 
6. Portion into your loaf pans, smooth the top of the dough and bake for one hour, covered loosely with foil. If using mini-loaf pans, decrease baking time by 15 minutes. Let cakes cool in the pans.
7. When cool, unmold carefully and brush with a bit of rum or whatever booze you’re using (optional).

One of my mini-loaves, giving as a gift!

Healthy trails,