This wonderfully indulgent vegan Christmas cake is absolutely packed with fruit and spice. It’s rich, moist, delicious and deceptively easy to make!

There is however a loooong story behind this Christmas cake.  Phil “I don’t like dried fruit” Fusspants wasn’t supposed to like this cake.  And the first one I made sunk a little in the middle.  No detriment to the flavour but I’d got the mix too wet and it had a not very photogenic crater in the middle.  It was supposed to get cut up for him to take to work.  Three slices of cake later he declared himself Phil “I don’t like dried fruit but I’d sell my soul for fruit cake”.  Not a single slice left the house.

And because Cake No.1 sunk in the middle it didn’t get photographed.  So cake No.2 was made.  Nothing wrong with it.  But the new fruit cake addict didn’t give me time to get the cake cooled and photographed before carving himself off several slices.

Repeat with Cake No.3

At which point I threw my hands in the air and rapidly made another one before Cake No.3 had all gone.  Fruit cake in stock = won’t touch new fruit cake so I can get the bloody thing photographed before it vanishes before my very eyes.

Fortunately this is a VERY easy Christmas cake recipe.  Like ridiculously easy.  It takes longer to weigh out the ingredients than it does to actually make it.  But what we get is a divinely rich but light and moist fruit caked absolutely packed with all those wonderful dried fruits.  Plump sultanas, chewy dried apricots and dates, sweet candied peel and sparkling, jewel like glacé cherries.

And the extra beauty of this rich spicy Christmas cake is it’s ready to go right out of the oven.  You can feed it for the next couple of months if you choose but it’s already so full of flavour it doesn’t really need it.  Unless you like your fruit cake extra boozy of course 😉

If you’re looking for other vegan Christmas baked goods we’ve got you covered:

• Gingerbread Cookies – is it even Christmas if there isn’t a gingerbread something somewhere?
• Hot Chocolate Muffins – the iconic seasonal drink in a sticky muffin, topped with toasted vegan marshmallow.
• Mince Pies – the best thing about Christmas.  Fact.  I generally tend to overdose on these staring early November.
• Chocolate and Orange Mini Loaf Cakes – festive little fancies, delicately light with yummy candied orange.
• Ginger Cake – gorgeously light gluten free sponge studded with crystallised ginger

How to make a vegan fruit cake

Well, it’s pretty much the same as you’d make a non-vegan fruit cake.  The only difference is no eggs and using plant milk.  For this Christmas cake I’ve substituted the eggs with ‘flax eggs’.  This is just mixing ground flax seeds with a little cold water and allowing it to stand and thicken slightly.

I’ve also used a Kitchen Aid to make this cake but it’s not necessary.  Four fruit cakes in and my arm muscles are glad I did though 😉

If you’re mixing by hand you’ll need to use either a soft tub margarine or allow the vegan butter to soften at room temperature beforehand.  Unless you have Popeye muscles of course.

You’ll also need to soak the fruit in advance.  Twenty four hours is plenty but requires a bit of forward planning.  This allows the fruit to soak up the liquid making them plump and juicy.

Once you have all your components ready it’s as simple as creaming together the fat and sugar, adding the wet and dry then adding the fruit.  Nothing more complicated than that.

And four fruit cakes made with three of them eaten in less than three weeks I think is a testament to just how hecking easy and delicious this cake recipe is.

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