Vegan Christmas Cake
My Christmas cake is a lighter, cinnamonny, fruitier version of the traditional fruit cake.
Most people use sultanas as their fruit base with a few cherries, I focus more on cherries.
I use more cinnamon and nutmeg, rather than mixed spice and added some coconut and almond meal to lighten the flavour.
For Pre Soaking:
2-3 bags of glace cherries
¼ – ½ cup sultanas and/or mixed dry fruit
Freshly squeezed Orange juice
Sweet Sherry
For the Cake:
1 cup plain Flour
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup almond meal (I used a flax, Coq10, almond meal mix w/ walnut pieces)
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon or to taste
dash of mixed spice
3/4 cup coconut and/or rapadura sugar
½ cup dark brown soft sugar
4 egg replacers or flax eggs (I use Orgran egg replacer)
1 dessert spoon black treacle
1 teaspoon golden syrup
Splash of vanilla essence
270 grams dairy free butter (i use nuttelex)
1 tablespoon coconut oil
¼-1 cup slivered almonds
zest of an orange
sprinkle of cinnamon sugar
Sweet Sherry to ‘feed’ the cake
Put cherries and fruit in orange juice to soak
Add Sweet Sherry and leave to soak ( the longer you soak the better, minimum 2 hours)
Preheat the oven at 140
Mix all dry ingredients together
Add wet ingredients with the vegan egg going in last- mix all wet ingredients, without the ‘egg’ first and then add ‘egg’
Now gradually fold in pre soaked fruits, nuts, zests (drain pre soaking before folding into cake)
Put cake mix into tin and bake the cake on the lowest shelf for 4 hours
Let the cake stand and when cool, ‘feed’ the cake with letting it absorb some sherry
You can now ‘feed’ it at odd times until it needs icing or ready to eat it
For the Icing:
Marmalade, heated to brush on the cake for marzipan to stick
Marzipan, rolled out to cover cake
1 ½ cups Icing Sugar
Squeeze of lemon
Egg replacer equivalent to 1 egg white
May need a little bit of water or dairy free milk to smooth it out
Luxury vegan 
