The festive season is often a time that people’s dietary best intentions go right out the window, but this year that doesn’t have to be the case. SweetLife has been on the case thinking about all of us trying not to indulge this holiday season and have formulated a range of sugar free and gluten free Christmas recipes that sound delicious.
SUGAR FREE & GLUTEN FREE Christmas Cake
Serves 24
INGREDIENTS
Melted unsalted butter or olive oil, for greasing
250g unsalted butter, chopped
125ml water
125ml brandy
80g Perfect Sweet® xylitol
375g raisins
250g sultanas
250g currants
125g pitted prunes, chopped
100g dried mixed peel
4 x 60g eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
270g almond meal
100g chopped natural almonds
1½ teaspoons mixed spice
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
16-20 whole natural almonds, to decorate
40ml brandy
METHOD
Preheat oven to 160˚C/140˚C fan-forced. Brush a 23cm round cake pan with butter or oil to grease. Line base and side with two layers of baking paper.
Place butter, water, brandy and Perfect Sweet® xylitol in a medium saucepan and stir over low heat until melted and combined. Add raisins, sultanas, currants, prunes and peel. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, for 8 minutes, stirring often.
Place mixture into a large bowl and cool to room temperature.
Add eggs, lemon zest and orange zest to fruit mixture and use a wooden spoon to mix well. Stir in almond meal, chopped almonds, mixed spice and bicarb soda, mixing well. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Decorate the top with whole almonds and cover the top of cake with baking paper.
Loosely wrap pan in brown paper and bake for 1 hour. Remove the brown paper and reduce temperature to 150˚C/130˚C fan-forced. Bake for a further hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Drizzle hot cake with the brandy. Wrap pan in clean tea towels and set aside to cool completely.
Recipe courtesy of www.sweetlife.com.au.
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