Easy Vegan Christmas Cake

Christmas cake! Have you made yours yet??

This recipe doesn’t need maturing so you could literally make this Christmas Eve and it will be delicious for Christmas day.

It is also a Free From Christmas Cake, regular readers will know I’m allergic to dairy and eggs- this has neither, and you’d never know.

This vegan Christmas cake is topped with marzipan and no icing. That’s my personal preference, as I find it too sweet, and you can always add icing if you want to.

Equipment you will need;

2 mixing bowls
A large pan
Measuring jug
Scales
Teaspoon
Tablespoon
Wooden Spoon
Spatula
Sieve
Greaseproof paper
String
A 20cm round cake tin, with a removable base

And your Vegan Christmas Cake ingredients are;

300g Vitalite
500ml apple juice
300g pitted, chopped dates
350g rasins
325g sultanas
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g plain flour, sifted
150g ground almonds
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Finely grated zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
2 tbsp of whatever you want to feed the cake with, if you are doing so. Obviously if you are vegan you’ll need to consider what you want to feed it with- not all booze is animal free surprisingly.

Line your cake tin, you need to grease it to with a bit of Vitalite, and measure out all your ingredients- so they are all to hand when you need them.

Put your oven on at 160C or Gas mark 2.5

Melt your margarine in the pan with the apple juice, then stir in the dried fruits. Bring to the boil, and then leave to simmer for five minutes. Here’s the science bit… transfer to one of your bowls, the larger one if they are different, and stir in the B.of Soda, it’ll all fizz up and go very bubbly!!

Let the fruit mixture cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together the flour, almonds, nutmeg and cinnamon in your smaller bowl.

And you will have chance to tidy the mess you made so far if you are anything like me!

Now add it all together into the bigger bowl and mix in. Fold in the orange and lemon zest and then transfer to the cake tin.

You then need to make a cover- using grease proof paper again, for your cake so the top doesn’t burn or dry out. You need to cut a hole in the middle for the hot air to escape and also grease the area where the cake may touch. Secure with string.

Vegan christmas cake wrap the cake so the top doesnt burn

Then into the oven for two and a half hours, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. It makes your house smell festive and it comes out looking much darker.

Let it cool completely before removing it from the paper and tin. If you are feeding it booze then you can start now, a tablespoon every other day for a couple of weeks will be plenty.

Or you can keep it alcohol free and can start decorating your vegan Christmas cake straight away!

I decorate my Christmas cake with marzipan only. I find the icing too sweet- but obviously the choice is yours.

First, unwrap the cake- make sure you use the base of the cake for decorating as its smoother and flatter. Heat up some apricot conserve and smother it on the cake- this acts as the “glue” to hold your decoration in place.

I roll out my marzipan (shop bought) and cover the cake with it. Then with the cut offs I usually add some decorative touches.

Use the melted apricot conserve as the glue again to add any decoration. Have a wonderful holiday season and Merry Christmas if you celebrate it!

Do let me know if you make this cake and if you want more vegan baked treats follow my Pinterest board where I’ve gather some good vegan cake recipes all in one place.