This vegan orange and almond cake is another rich fruitcake that’s suitable for Christmas or other special occasions. Its defining features are the orange flavour, which is amplified by a large dose of orange liqueur, and the warm amber tones that result from using dried apricots – both pureed and chopped – in the cake mixture.
The drizzled icing and orange zest are optional, as the cake looks good enough on its own with its slightly sticky glaze of orange liqueur (in this case, Cointreau.)
Both ground and flaked almonds are included for a varied texture.
Like the other two Christmas cake recipes I’ve posted, this cake is very moist and benefits from being wrapped up and stored for a week or more before cutting it. The pictured cake was cut after just four days and you can see it’s still quite soft.
I used a mixture of golden and ordinary sultanas this time (only because that’s what was in the cupboard!). Using all golden sultanas gives a more uniform gold/amber colour to the cake.
Then again, if you want to avoid or minimise sulphur dioxide, you could use unsulphured apricots and ordinary sultanas. I don’t know how easy it is to get hold of unsulphured candied peel, but you can make your own, which would no doubt taste really good in this kind of cake. (There is a recipe on the BBC Good Food website.)
Vegan Orange and Almond Cake…
Ingredients
- 200 g dried apricots
- 40 ml orange liqueur plus extra for drizzling
- zest of a large orange and 50 ml juice
- 2 tbsp ground golden flaxseed
- 100 ml light olive (or other mild tasting) oil
- 120 g white sugar
- 200 g golden (or ordinary) sultanas
- 100 g mixed peel
- 100 g flaked almonds
- 50 g ground almonds
- 200 g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
Method
- Place 100g of the dried apricots in a jug or bowl and pour over 100 ml boiling water. Leave them to steep until the water is tepid, then blend to a smooth puree.
- While the apricots are steeping, whisk 4 tbsp water into the ground flaxseed and set aside.
- Set the oven to 150°C/300°F and lightly oil and line a deep 7″ baking tin. (If you use a larger tin you will need to reduce the baking time a bit.)
- In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, sugar, orange juice, orange liqueur, flaxseed mixture and apricot puree until smooth and fully combined.
- Chop the remaining 100g dried apricots and add these to the liquid mixture with the sultanas, mixed peel and orange zest.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour and baking powder and then stir through the ground almonds until evenly distributed.
- Stir the flour mixture and the flaked almonds into the fruit mixture until evenly combined.
- Transfer to the baking tin and level the top before baking for around 1 hr 50 minutes. Test the centre with a skewer to ensure it’s baked through.
- Leave the cake in the tin to cool, then drizzle two tbsp orange liqueur over the top. Once this has soaked in a bit, you can remove the cake from the tin and wrap it up to store.
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