Gluten free fruit cake

Just because you can’t eat foods containing gluten doesn’t mean you need to miss out on festive and party goodies.

This fruit cake tastes just like a Christmas cake and you can serve it to anyone – whether they need to be gluten free or not.  I made it with pre-packed gluten-free flour (a mixture of ground tapioca, potato and rice). 

You can make your own mix with these or other gluten-free cereals.  I also like to add ground almonds.

I don’t recommend chickpea flour for this cake due to its strong flavour.  Also I’d avoid ordinary baking powder as it may have traces of gluten.

The method for making this cake basically involves only one lot of mixing.  How easy is that!

Ingredients

1 kg dried fruit mix
2 cups orange juice
1 ½ cups gluten-free flour (or you can mix your own – ¾  cup  rice flour, ½  cup  potato  flour)
½ cup ground almonds
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Method

1. Empty the packet of fruit mix into a large mixing bowl
2. Pour over the orange juice and leave to soak overnight or for at least 3 hours. This allows the juice to soak into and soften the fruit
3. Prepare a 22cm square or round cake tin. Grease the base and sides and line with the whole tin with cake baking or greaseproof paper
4. Cut the paper to fit the base and then cut strips to line the sides of the tin. Brush the paper with a greased pastry brush or a knife that has been dipped in cooking oil.  Put prepared tin to one side
5. When you’re ready to mix the cake heat the oven to 170° C
6. Measure the dry ingredients and sift them into the bowl with the fruit and juice
7. Stir gently with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are mixed evenly through the fruit.
8. Spoon into the prepared baking tin and spread the mixture evenly.
9. Bake at 170° C for 1 ½  hours. Check after about 70 minutes that the top isn’t burning.  If the fruit is starting to look dark brown or even black, cover the top of the cake with a double sheet of greaseproof or baking paper
10. When cooked, leave the cake to cool in the tin before turning it out.

This makes a smallish cake that is about 5 cm high. 

Notes:

1. You can eat it as is or ice it.  Traditional Christmas cake icing consists of an almond paste covered with a smooth white icing mixture.  Check out how to do it here.
2. If you like almonds, you can decorate your cake before you cook it by placing almonds over the top of your cake.  Then you have an attractive cake that doesn’t need to be iced.
3. You can add more ground almonds if you want to.  Just reduce the amount of the flours by the same volume.