Christmas means cake, and when we’re not making our Vegan Red Velvet Cake or our Vegan Bundt Cake, we make this classic vegan Christmas cake!
Ingredients and Substitutions
This vegan Christmas cake uses many ingredients, so be prepared for a long baking session here. It’s not a complicated recipe, but it requires love and patience. Luckily, this vegan Christmas cake recipe doesn’t require soaking the dried fruit overnight, saving you some time. However, I usually recommend preparing Christmas cake a few days before Christmas so the cake infuses all the flavors from spices. The cake contains two pounds of dried fruits. You can be creative and change the ratio of each dried fruit to suit your liking.
Dried Fruits
My favorite combination of dried fruits for this vegan Christmas cake recipe are these:
Dried Raisins – or dried sultanas Dried Figs – roughly chopped Dried Apricots – roughly chopped Candied Cherries – roughly chopped Dates – Pitted and chopped you can also replace the dates with dried prunes. Dried Cranberries or currants
Ingredients To Cook The Dried Fruits
Brown Sugar or coconut sugar Dairy-Free Butter Molasses Brown Sugar Orange Juice Lemon Juice Brandy or rum, or skip the alcohol and add more orange juice or apple juice.
Christmas Cake Ingredients
For the batter, you need the ingredients below
All-Purpose Flour – You can also use white spelt flour or all-purpose gluten-free flour with gum with variation in term of texture, the cake might be dense with gluten-free flour Cinnamon Allspice Nutmeg Vanilla Extract Flaxmeal and lukewarm – this acts as an egg replacer. Almond Flour or ground almonds or oat flour Chopped Walnuts or pecan Baking Powder
How To Make Vegan Christmas Cake
Line a 9-inch round pan with parchment paper at the bottom and side. Oil with cooking spray. Set aside. To make this fruit cake recipe, you need to soak the dried fruits or cook the fruits with the liquid ingredients. I recommend cooking the fruit to save time.
Making The Fruit Mixture
I recommend wrapping the top of the pan with a piece of foil after one hour to prevent the top of the cake from browning too fast. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for an hour at room temperature. Then, transfer it to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Decorating Christmas Cake
The next day, you can decorate the cake, a traditional Christmas cake. If you are thinking about adding a round piece of vegan fondant on top of the cake, you first need to:
Level up the top of the cake – use a long sharp knife to remove the top of the cake and make it flat. Brush the top of the cake with apricot jam. The jam seals the fondant to the top of the cake. Place a 9-inch disc of white fondant on top of the cake.
I prefer to keep the cake plain and add natural decorations on top. Wrapping the cake with a Christmas ribbon adds colors, and a few golden Christmas sprinkles make the cake so beautiful without adding too much sweetness.
Storage Instructions
Store Christmas cakes in the fridge, in an airtight container for up to one week. Freeze leftovers in sealed bags for up to one month and thaw them in the fridge the day before.
Allery Swaps
Below are some ingredients swap ideas if you need them.
Gluten-Free – Use all-purpose gluten-free flour instead of wheat all-purpose flour. Nut-Free – Replace the almond flour with sesame seed flour, sunflower seed flour, or oat flour. Skip the walnuts or use sunflower seeds instead.
Here are my answers to your most common questions about this vegan cake recipe.
