» PREPARATION: 30 MINS » SET OVERNIGHT » SERVES 12
In New Zealand, our summer Christmases are often spent on the beach, so we don’t always feel like rich, heavy, traditional Christmas desserts. This cake has all the yuletide flavours but is a light, raw dessert sweetened with dried fruit. Cashews are a revelation when it comes to plant-based icing — you’ll never need butter and icing sugar again.
Blend nuts to a rough flour in a food processor. Add the rest of the dry ingredients, pulse to combine, then set aside.
Roughly chop the figs, apricots and dates in the food processor (they’ll be quite sticky), then add the remaining wet ingredients and pulse to combine.
Add the dry ingredient mix to the wet and pulse to combine. You want to keep the dried fruit chunky, so be careful not to overblend. Pour the mix into a 19cm lined cake tin, smoothed evenly with the back of a spoon, and put in the fridge.
Blitz the cashews to a flour in a blender, then add remaining icing ingredients and process until smooth. Pour onto the cake and put in the fridge overnight to set.
Decorate with fresh berries and mint leaves and serve with CCC Cream or plant-based yoghurt.
Photos from: begoodorganics.com
Ingredients
Dry
- 1 cup almonds
- ½ cup Brazil nuts
- 1½ cup desiccated coconut 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- large pinch ground
- nutmeg
Wet
- ½ cup dried figs
- ½ cup dried apricots
- ½ cup dried dates
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup sultanas
- zest, juice & flesh of 1 orange 3 tbsp melted coconut oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
White Chocolate Icing
- 1 cup cashews
- ⅓ cup water
- 4 tbsp melted cacao butter 2 tbsp liquid sweetener
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract pinch sea salt
To Top
- fresh berries mint
- CCC Cream (p. 220) or plant- based yoghurt
Notes
- Use sunflower seeds, oats or buckwheat instead of almonds, pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds instead of Brazils, and hemp seeds in the icing.
- Use date paste for the liquid
- Skip the cacao butter in the base (add 1–2 tablespoons water instead). Ice with the cream cheese icing from the Carrot Cake (p. 182), replacing the lemon with 2–3 tablespoons water.
- To make this cake less energy dense, swap 1 cup desiccated coconut for 1 cup rolled oats
This recipe was sourced from begoodorganics.com by Buffy Ellen Gill with thanks
