golden fruit cake

OMFG. Vegan. Gluten free. Full of rum, sugar and dried fruit. This is ridiculously easy and makes your house smell like a heavenly pixie land inhabited by unicorns for days.

Recipe tweaked from Nigella

ingredients 
350 gm dried pear 
250 gm sultanas 
250 gm dried apricot 
175 gm marg
200 gm caster sugar 
125 ml white rum 
200 gm ginger marmalade
225 gm almond meal
35 gm mixture sunflower & pumpkin seeds
¼ tsp ground coriander 
3 tbsp chia seeds (black or white)
9 tbsp of water
blanched almonds to decorate the top

method
1. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees celcius

2. Save yourself the hassle and roughly chop the pear and apricots in a food processor. You may have to work in batches because there is a TONNE of dried fruit.

3. Melt the marg, sugar, rum and marmalade to make the elixir of craziness. Then add the apricots, pear and sultanas and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes. Leave for 30 minutes to cool.

4. While the fruit mixture is cooling prepare your cake tin (20cms deep please - I also used a 9inch pan) and the chia seeds "eggs". Bash up the chia seeds in a mortar and pestle. As the cake is dense and you wont see the seeds I wouldn't worry about grinding them. Add the water and combine well. Let sit until ready. They will go all glugy like egg white - that's normal!

5. Mix the almond meal, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and ground coriander into the fruit mixutre until well combined. Smooth out into your cake tin and decorate with blanched almonds if that's your thing.

6. Bake for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Let sit until quite cool before trying to remove from cake pan.

7. Impress EVERYONE with this amazing gluten free, vegan Christmas cake.

Enjoy beauties.