Dairy free Christmas cake recipe

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This dairy free Christmas cake is packed with rum-soaked dried fruit and cherries, rich chestnut purée, soft brown sugar and honey for sweetness.

  • Vegetarian
Makes
Preparation Time30 mins -40
Cooking Time2 hours
Rosie Hopegood's avatar
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This beautiful Christmas cake is simple, elegant, and entirely gluten and dairy-free. Topped with dried fruit and nuts and an apricot glaze, it tastes just as good as the classic.

You could also top dairy-free Christmas cake with marzipan and sugarpaste. These ingredients are usually gluten and dairy-free, but it’s always best to check the label. It’s also easy to adapt this recipe for a plant-based diet – check out our top tips at the bottom of the recipe. After a more traditional recipe? You can’t go wrong with Mary Berry’s Christmas cake recipe.

Ingredients

  • 225g (8oz) dairy-free spread
  • 900g (2lb) mixed dried fruit
  • 100g (3 1/2oz) glace cherries
  • 225ml (8fl oz) dark rum
  • 5 free range eggs, separated
  • 100g (3 1/2oz) unsweetened, tinned chestnut puree or silken tofu or 1 large banana
  • 100g (3 1/2oz) rice flour
  • 50g (1 3/4oz) gram flour (chick pea flour)
  • 2tbsp mixed spice
  • 225g (8oz) soft brown sugar
  • 150ml (1/4pt) clear honey

WEIGHT CONVERTER

to

Method

  1. Soak the dried fruit and cherries in rum for 24 hours.
  2. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas 2. Using a little dairy-free spread, grease and line a 23cm (9in) deep cake tin with non-stick baking parchment.
  3. Separate the eggs. Add the egg yolks to the chestnut puree and blend until smooth.
  4. Mix the flours and mixed spice together. Cream the dairy-free spread and the sugar together and beat in spoonfuls of the chestnut puree mixture and the flour until all is added.
  5. Stir in the dried fruit with rum and honey. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the cake mixture.
  6. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 2-2 1/2 hrs. Store the cake wrapped in baking parchment and tin foil until required.

Top tips for making this dairy-free Christmas cake

Make this cake vegan by replacing the honey with agave or maple syrup. Replace the eggs with chia 'eggs' (1 chia 'egg' = 1tbsp of chia seeds mixed with 3tbsp water, left for five minutes until a gel-like consistency) This cake does not have a long shelf life and needs to be eaten within 2 weeks of making.

For more festive inspiration, have a look at Mary Berry’s fruit cake and our easy Christmas cake recipe as well as easy Christmas cake ideas for decorating your masterpiece. P.S. Did you know you can bake Christmas cake in an air fryer? It's quicker than a conventional oven.

Rosie Hopegood
Rosie Hopegood
Freelance Contributor (US)

Rosie Hopegood is a journalist, editor, and writer with many years of experience writing about lifestyle, including parenting, for a broad range of magazines and newspapers. Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Rosie has written for Daily Telegraph, Al Jazeera, The Observer, The Guardian, The Independent, Vice, Telegraph Magazine, Fabulous Magazine, Stella Magazine, Notebook Magazine, Saga Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, S Magazine, and Stella Magazine. She spent five years on staff at the Mirror, where she was Deputy Features Editor on the magazines team.