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.
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
- the zest, juice and flesh of one 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 and mint
- Coconut Cashew Chia Cream or plant-based yoghurt
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 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’ll 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 Coconut Cashew Chia Cream or plant-based yoghurt.
Notes:
- Nut-free (NF): Use sunflower seeds, oats or buckwheat instead of almonds, pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds instead of Brazils, and hemp seeds in the icing.
- Sugar-free (SF): Use date paste for the liquid sweetener.
- To make this cake less energy dense, swap 1 cup desiccated coconut for 1 cup rolled oats.
