Vegan Fruitcake Recipe

A lot of things are better with booze: Wii Sports, rum raisin cupcakes, hockey, watermelon, booze...  It pains me to say this, but fruitcake is better without the booze.  I created two vegan fruitcake recipes, one with rum and one without.  The one without the rum won the hearts of my family.  

This recipe was adapted from Alton Brown's recipe, which can be found here.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons milled flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water

1 cup golden raisins

1 cup currants

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup dried cherries

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

Zest of one lemon, chopped coarsely

Zest of one orange, chopped coarsely

1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped

2 cups unfiltered apple juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 to 1/2 cup pecan pieces (optional)

Preparation
Combine dried fruits, candied ginger, both zests, flax seed, and 3 tablespoons of water. Add 1 cup of apple juice and allow fruit to soak overnight in a covered bowl.  Alternatively, you can microwave the mixture for 5 minutes to re-hydrate the fruit.

Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the sugar, coconut oil, water, 1 cup of apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.  Cool the mixture for at least 15-30 minutes.

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and sift them into the fruit mixture. Quickly bring the batter together with a large wooden spoon.  The batter will be very, very thick.  You will get a good workout while working the batter.  Fold in the nuts.

Divide batter in half and spoon it into 2 8-inch non-stick loaf pans.  Bake for 40-50 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out mostly clean, it's done. If not, bake another 5 minutes, and check again.

Allow to cool completely before turning out from pan.

**Note: Feel free to mix and match the fruits as you see fit.  Trader Joe’s didn’t have currents for my first batch, so I used a combination of golden raisins and dried mango.  It turned out quite lovely.