Gluten-Free Vegan Fruit Cake - Rhian's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the best liquor to soak fruitcake in? ›

What alcohol should you use? Strong, flavourful spirits with a high ABV are ideal for feeding fruitcakes. You can use rum, brandy or whisky for spice, or if you like citrus flavours, try an orange liqueur. Cherry brandy and amaretto will also work well if you prefer these.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture.

To combat the flat cake problem, I add ½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda to the recipe even when using a self-raising gluten-free flour blend. Another tip to help achieve a real fluffy cake is to separate your eggs. First, add the egg yolks with your wet ingredients.

You can soak the fruit for days (or weeks) by adding alcohol and mixing as you go, allowing the dried fruit to soak up all the liquid. We do this by adding alcohol (or fruit juice or even a mix) bit by bit until the fruit is plump, or you can just soak overnight and add the rest of the alcohol after the cake is baked.

Cognac is probably the best substitute for brandy in fruitcake.

Sorghum flour: great for cakes

Made from an ancient cereal grain that has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years, sorghum flour is light in colour and texture, though it is a fairly dense flour. It is rich in protein and fibre, which helps maintain blood sugar stability and may also help with digestion.

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour.

Some gluten free flours will produce a cake which is on the dry side. This might be due to the lack of gluten but can be for many other reasons. Lots of gluten free flour is rice based and this can result in a dry and slightly gritty texture.

Ultimately, the toothpick test is just one data source to rely upon: with the trio—toothpick, edges, & centre—you can reliably know your gluten-free baked goods are, well, baked! If your toothpick comes out with wet batter on it, your cake definitely needs more time.

Why is my vegan cake gummy? ›

This can happen for a few reasons, but the biggest reason is that your ingredients weren't room temperature. If your ingredients, even vegan ingredients, aren't all room temperature (i.e. some are cool, some are warm, some are hot), the cake will come out gummy.

Over mixing batter is another reason which causes over development of the gluten and a dense result. If your oven isn't heated to the correct temperature before you put your cake in, it can cause it to not bake properly. Using too much flour and not aerating and sifting your flour before you bake can be another reason.

We often reach for almond flour in baking recipes when we're looking for a light, fluffy, cake-y texture with neutral flavor, because almond flour has a milder flavor than almond meal, and tends to fluff up nicely when baked!

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

For example, rum and bourbon give off nutty and vanilla tasting notes that work well with pie filling, cake mix and cookie dough (much like a vanilla extract). Red wine, port and brandy, on the other hand, add a sweetness that pairs nicely with glazes, chocolate cake and gingerbread.

When cooled, remove cakes from pans and remove parchment paper. Brush cakes generously with sweet sherry, brandy, rum, port, liqueur or fruit juice; do not use wine. Using fruit juice can increase the chances of your fruitcake going mouldy. Wrap each cake in several layers of cheesecloth and then in plastic wrap.

Rum: You can use whatever rum you like for this cake (light or dark); I typically use Myers dark rum.