Friday, 11 November 2011

No! No! No!

No eggs, no gluten, no added sugar…The Yes!Yes!Yes! cake is a brilliant birthday or Christmas cake – it suits almost everybody [except those with nut allergies] and cuts into a dozen slices or more. It is incredibly rich – after our first slices, we went in for much smaller pieces.

DSCF2621

You need a 9” ‘springform’ cake tin like this

springform

  • 200ml oil [almond or sunflower]
  • 500ml apple juice
  • 300g chopped dates
  • 500g mixed raisins and sultanas
  • 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 300g ground almonds
  • 1tsp grated nutmeg
  • grated zest of 1 orange
  • 100g chopped walnuts
  • icing sugar for dusting
  1. Preheat oven to 140°C. Pour oil and juice in medium sized saucepan, stir in dates, raisins and sultanas. Bring to boil then simmer for 5 minutes.
  2. Transfer mixture to large mixing bowl, stir in bicarb - it will sizzle furiously! Leave to cool for 10 minutes. Line the tin with baking parchment or a non-stick liner. Fold almonds, nutmeg, zest and walnuts into dried fruit mixture. Pour into the tin.
  3. Take a large piece of baking parchment which will cover surface of cake and go at least halfway down sides of tin. Cut a circle 1”in diameter from centre of paper, then tie paper firmly in place.
  4. Bake the cake for 3 hours, testing after 2½ hours with a skewer [through the hole!] When skewer comes out clean, cake is done. Run knife round the edge, and remove collar, leaving cake to cool on the base.
  5. The following day, the cake will be ready to eat. Dust with icing sugar. It will keep well in a tin for several weeks.

Enjoy!!

1 comment:

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