Healthy Fruit Cake

Oh my what a busy few months it's been. Oh my what a long time since I last posted! With a trip back to Australia just around the corner, I've been inspired to make more of an effort on this dear blog.
What better way to revive the blog, and oneself, this time of year than with a fruit cake. Growing up, I was never a fan of fruitcakes; I found them all too sweet, all too dense and all too boring. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a recipe by Teresa Cutter than was neither too sweet, nor too dense, and definitely not boring.
Last time I made this, I had to make a few adjustments because 1) I didn't have exactly the right ingredients and 2) I felt like adding my own ingredients. It still worked out superbly.
First in the bowl is a medley of dried fruits: I used apricots, dates, raisins, goji berries (a Chinese herb/fruit) and longans (another Chinese herb/fruit which I absolutely love).

Variety of dried fruits
To this we add eggs (fresh from the chickens in the backyard in this case), with a whole orange and Christmas-sy spices (nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves). I snuck in a little bit of liquor here, but I won't tell if you don't. There's double the amount of eggs called for by the recipe in the photo because I made a double batch.

Eggs
Some flour/nut meal of your choice - I used freshly ground almond meal here which resulted in a coarser than usual texture.

Almond Meal
Mix it all together...

Fruit Cake Mix
...then prepare for baking!

Fruit Cakes Ready to be Baked

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Healthy Fruit Cake
Adapted from Teresa Cutter

Gluten-free

Ingredients:

• 650g dried fruits
• 1 whole orange, peeled
• 3 free range eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract/paste
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 100g flour or nut-meal
• 120g melted butter or oil
• 80g nuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 C.
2. Combine dried fruits in a large mixing bowl.
3. Crack eggs into a blender and add the peeled orange, vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Blend until smooth and combined.
4. Pour the liquid mix over the top of the dried fruits and add melted butter/oil. Mix in well.
5. Add flour/nut-meal and mix through. Optionally add nuts to the mix.
6. Line a 18 cm ( 7 1/2 inch ) baking tin with baking paper.
7. Spoon in the cake mix and flatten over the top.
8. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until cake is cooked through.
9. Remove from the oven and cool.

Healthy Fruit Cake

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