Healthy Christmas Cake

Receipe courtesy of Bhavana

This is a healthy take on the classic Christmas recipe. The cake is deliciously moist and dense with dried fruit, so it doesn't require a lot of added sugar. Prepare this cake and store in an airtight container in a refrigerator for 15 days.

Ingredients

1 orange
1 1/2 cup of sifted gluten free flour
2 free range eggs
¾ cup of mixed dry fruits (Sultanas, dates, raisins, currants, cherries etc)
1/4 cup of rice bran oil
1/4 cup of coconut sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda (gluten and aluminium free)
1/2 cup rice milk
Handful of almonds
½ tsp cinnamon powder
¼ tsp nutmeg powder

Directions

The important thing to note is that all ingredients for the cake need to be at room temperature.

Separate the egg whites from the yolk
Extract the Orange juice and zest from the orange.
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, spices and baking soda) by passing them through a sieve/sifter couple of times.
Dissolve the coconut sugar in milk and add to the dry ingredients
Add rice bran oil, rice milk, orange juice, zest and egg yolk to the mix
Mix the ingredients well with a hand mixer. The mix will be little dry initially, but it will reach the correct consistency once we mix egg whites.
Take the egg whites in the bowl and use a whisk/mixer to get stiff peaks. You may use a hand mixer to beat the eggs. Add these to the cake mix.
Use spatula to mix the egg whites with the cake mix, else use a mixer
Add the mixed dry fruits to the mix
Pour the cake mix in an spring form cake tins lined with baking paper(1 cake tin of around 20 cm or 2 small cake tins of 10 cm each)
Garnish with almonds.
Place the cake tin in pre-heated oven at 175C/350F and bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until toothpick comes out. Alternatively you may use a water bath to bake the cake, it will take around 65 to 70 minutes or until toothpick comes. Water bath adds moisture to the oven and provides a more even, slower heat source than the direct heat of an oven
Allow the cake to cool on the rack for 30 minutes.