Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Cake

This rich vegan chocolate hazelnut Christmas cake is full of fruit and simple to make.

You can lace it with any alcohol that’s a good companion to chocolate.  I use dark sherry because it doesn’t overpower the other flavours and makes me think of a Dickensian Christmas.  If you prefer to omit alcohol altogether, you can soak the fruit in fresh orange juice or fruit tea.

This is a particularly moist cake.  Like other fruit-laden Christmas cakes, it improves if wrapped and kept in an airtight container for a few weeks. It could do with being left to rest for a week, at least, and spoon-fed a little alcohol from time to time. (It’s not the only one.)

The pictured cake was cut after just three days, and you can see it’s still a bit soft for cutting, although it tastes perfectly good!

Hazelnuts feature purely because they work well with chocolate, but it so happens that they are also ranked third behind pecans and walnuts in the top ten of nutrient-rich nuts.

Prunes, or dried plums to give them their Sunday name, add moisture and depth of colour. They have a warm fruity flavour that subtly complements the dark chocolate, spice and orange. Of course, they bring numerous health benefits, too.

The recipe uses dark (unsulphured) glace cherries, in part because they’re more natural, but also because their glossy claret colour is beautiful in a chocolate cake.

The chocolate poinsettia decoration turned out to look quite sophisticated but is incredibly easy (instructions below).  It would look more sophisticated still on a smooth white icing.  I have used white rowan berries for the centre which are inedible when raw, so they are only for decoration.  Pink peppercorns, sea buckthorn berries, or any other small (non-poisonous!) berries would do the job.

Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Cake…

Ingredients

• 250 g raisins
• 100 g dried (sweetened) cranberries
• 80 g prunes
  
• 175 ml dark cream sherry for soaking, plus 2 tsbsp
  
• 130 ml light olive oil
• 3 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 130 g light muscovado sugar
• 100 g dark chocolate with 70% cocoa solids
  
• zest of a large orange and 2 tbsp juice
• 100 g plain white flour
• 100 g plain wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 100 g roughly ground hazelnuts
• 100 g (unsulphured) whole glace cherries
  

for the chocolate poinsettia

• 25-50 g dark chocolate
  
• icing sugar for dusting
• 6-10 rose leaves (not for eating)
  

Method

1. Roughly chop the prunes and soak these in the 175 ml sherry together with the raisins and cranberries for at least eight hours. Ideally, stir them after a few hours to ensure even absorption of the liquid.
2. Mix the ground flaxseed with six tablespoons of water and set aside for a few minutes.
3. Lightly oil a deep 7″ round cake tin and line with baking parchment. Set the oven to 150°C/300°F. (If you are using an 8″ tin, you will need to reduce the cooking time a bit.
4. Whisk together the olive oil and flaxseed mixture in a large bowl.
5. Stir the muscovado sugar and melted chocolate into the oil mixture, followed by the orange zest and juice and the extra 2 tbsp sherry.
6. Add the soaked fruit and stir until it is evenly mixed.
7. Sift the flours, baking powder and spices into a separate bowl before adding to the fruit mixture and folding until just combined. (If you are grinding cardamom from seeds yourself, you will only need 1 tsp.)
   
8. Add the whole glace cherries and ground hazelnuts and stir to distribute them evenly.  (I use a mini blender to grind whole hazelnuts roughly so there are still small chunks here and there.)
9. Transfer the mixture to the tin and smooth the top. 
10. Bake for 2 hours or a little longer.  Test with a skewer right in the centre to ensure the cake is baked through.
11. Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin. 
12. You can leave the baking parchment in place and wrap over that with clingfilm for storing.  Either pour a few tablespoons of sherry over before wrapping, or open the top of the wrapping a few times during storage and drizzle over a tablespoon or two.

for the chocolate poinsettia

1. To make the chocolate poinsettia, simply melt the chocolate and, using a teaspoon, drip a little onto the back of a (clean) rose leaf.
   
2. Use the back of the spoon to spread the chocolate in a thin layer to the edges of the leaf. It must be the back of the leaf, as this has clearer markings.
3. Place the leaf on a board, chocolate side up, to dry. You will need six leaves – ideally, three large and three smaller. It is worth doing a couple of extra leaves of each size as they can sometimes crack at the next stage.
4. Wait until the chocolate has set completely before gently peeling the leaves away from the chocolate.
5. Lightly sift icing sugar along the edges of each leaf and assemble by positioning the three large leaves first, and the smaller leaves in the spaces between. (You will need cold hands!) Use a little melted chocolate if you want to stick them in place.
6. Place a few berries or chopped cherries at the centre.

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