Celebration fruit cake with candied fruit and nuts
This is our favorite fruit cake recipe. It does take a while to bake, but as the fruit is boiled there is no over-night soaking needed. This recipe makes individual cakes, using muffin tins, and these only take 35 minutes to bake. You can make it nut-free by replacing the ground almonds with rice flour, and leaving out the whole nuts. The alcohol is optional, but if you choose not to add alcohol, you will need to replace the liquid with extra fruit juice so the cake is not too dry.
Credited to: Coeliac UK
Kcal: 448.0
Difficulty: Well worth the effort
Serves 25
40 mins prep
300 mins cooking time
Ingredients
- 300ml apple or orange juice
- 150ml Brandy or extra apple or orange juice
- 250g prunes, roughly chopped
- 250g dried apricots, roughly chopped
- 180g dates, stoned and roughly chopped
- 250g raisins
- 250g sultanas
- 150g glacé cherries, halved
- 300g gluten free self-raising flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- 50g ground almonds
- 50g whole almonds
- 50g broken walnuts
- 275g unsalted butter, softened
- 250g light brown sugar
- 5 eggs, lightly beaten
For the decoration:
- 2 oranges
- Large bowl of ice water
- 200g granulated sugar
- 200ml water
- 4 dried apricots
- 6 glace cherries
- 6 walnuts
- 100g whole almonds
- Edible gold spray or glitter
Notes: *Please check our Food and Drink Information for suitable products.
Method
- Preheat the oven to 150°C, gas mark 2. Line the base and sides of a 23cm round deep cake tin, with a double layer of baking parchment paper
- Put the juice, alcohol, and all the dried fruit into a saucepan. Gently bring this to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to cool
- In a large bowl or mixer, whisk the butter and sugar together until the mix is light and fluffy, then gradually add in the eggs
- Add the flour, spice, and nuts and stir gently. Then add the fruit and fold together so the mixture is thoroughly combined
- Place the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. Tap the tin on the work surface to dislodge any trapped air
- Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 3 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake in the tin then turn out and remove the paper
For the candied fruit and nuts:
- Slice the oranges into thin rounds not over 2mm thick. Discard the seeds and end cuts
- Fill a large bowl with iced water and set aside
- Bring a medium saucepan of water to the boil and add the orange slices, for 1 minute. Now remove the orange slices and place them in the bowl of ice water until they cool. Now remove them from the ice water and pat them dry with kitchen paper
- In a large frying pan, over medium heat, bring the sugar and water just to the boil, and then continue to heat until sugar dissolves (stir occasionally)
- Turn the heat to medium-low and place the orange slices in the sugar-water in a single layer
- Simmer (do not boil) the orange slices for 45-60 minutes or until rinds are slightly translucent, turning every 15 minutes
- Place the orange slices on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely
- Then reduce the left over syrup down to a caramel. Place cherries onto cocktail sticks (one cherry per stick) and dip into the caramel, then shake off the excess caramel and leave to set. Repeat with all the cherries and apricots
- Then add the nuts to the caramel so they get a light coating. Remove the nuts from the pan and place them onto tin foil. Separate them with a fork where necessary, and allow them to cool
- Spray the cake with the gold, then arrange the candied fruit and nuts on top of, and around, the cake.
Nutritional information per serving
Kcal
448
Fat
17.4g
Carbs
63.3g
Protein
5.9g
Fibre
3.1g
Sugars
48.4g
