Healthy fruit cake
This is the best fruit cake I have tried - All the sweetness comes from the fruit as there is no added sugar or fat in this cake. I even used it for my Christmas cake and it was very good - yes, this did have added marzipan and icing on it, so not so healthy for this one! You can use a mix of any dried fruit - I use figs, apricots, currants, raisins, sultanas, cherries.
Ingredients
Serves: 12
- 225g dates
- 300ml water
- 450g mixed fruit
- 175g plain wholemeal flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate)
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice
- 25g ground almonds
- grated zest of 1 orange
- 8 tablespoons orange juice
Method
Prep:30min ›
Cook:1hr35min ›
Ready in:2hr5min
- Put dates and water in a saucepan, bring up 'just' to the boil and simmer for approximately 30 minutes. Stir occasionally, until all of the dates have broken down to a pulp. Leave to cool slightly.
- Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4.
- Chop the figs and apricots until the size of sultanas. Put all of the other ingredients into a bowl, except the orange juice. Add the date pulp and gradually add the orange juice until you get a moist, but not too wet, mix. Put cake mixture into a lined loaf tin or 20cm round cake tin.
- Bake for about 1 1/4 hour.
Tip
Best left for a couple of days for the flavours to mature. If using as a Christmas cake, douse with your favourite spirit, wrap in greaseproof paper and then in foil, and leave for several weeks before icing and marzipan go on the cake. Enjoy!
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Reviews & ratings
Average global rating:
(3)
Reviews in English (5)
Am a bit confused with the recipe. No. 2 says chop figs and apricots but they are not in the ingredients so don't know how much to use I will use 120gr of each an see how that goes. - 26 Sep 2011
Cooked as recipe, using mainly mixed fruit from a packet and some figs to make up to 450g. First time I used a loaf tin. Second time a cake tin. Each time it failed to rise, coming out more like a fruity bread pudding than a cake. It's tasty but very solid. Where am I going wrong? - 14 Jan 2013
Really good reciepe. i was looking for a sugar free reciepe for my dad whos just been diagnosed with diabetes but everyone loves it. dead easy to adjust for different tasting cakes. added coconut and apple cause i had no almonds and not enough dried fruit and it worked fine. Definitly need to use some boiled dates, the spice snd the cocoa otherwise it doesn't work - 31 Aug 2012