Vegan Cranberry, Orange and Walnut Cake

Vegan Cranberry, Orange and Walnut Cake

by Carol Kearns 4 Comments

A lovely, lighter vegan alternative to traditional rich and heavy Christmas fruit cake – but still full of Christmassy flavours like cranberries, orange, walnuts and spices. Another easy but delicious recipe from Carol Kearns of The Art of Baking blog.

The recipe uses camelina seeds in place of eggs so it's suitable for vegans, while the use of sunflower oil and mashed bananas gives the cake a wonderfully moist texture.

As well as being delicious, this recipe is supremely easy to make. I’m a huge fan of baking cakes in a loaf tin as they cook more evenly than using a square or round cake tin (no overcooked edges while the middle stubbornly refuses to cook).

The baked cake keeps well in an airtight container (indeed, it gets better and better) or it can be made ahead and frozen until needed.

Makes 8 to 10 slices

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp Camelina Seeds
  • 1 medium Orange
  • 100g Dried, Sweetened Cranberries
  • 100ml Sunflower Oil
  • 150 to 175g ripe Bananas, peeled weight (about 2 medium bananas)
  • 140g Caster Sugar
  • 1 tsp Orange Extract
  • 250g White Self-raising Flour
  • 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
  • 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon (or Mixed Spice)
  • 50g Walnut Pieces, chopped
  • 1 tbsp Golden Linseed
You will need
  • A 2lb / 900g Loaf Tin
  • Non-stick liner or a solid vegetable fat (Trex works well) and greaseproof paper
  • Wooden or metal skewer

Method

  1. Put in the camelina seeds in a bowl with 6 tbsp of warm water and leave to stand for 30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C / Gas Mark 4. Lightly grease and line the loaf tin, or pop in a non-stick liner.
  3. Finely grate the zest of the orange into a mixing bowl. Squeeze the orange and put the juice* into a small saucepan with the cranberries. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring continuously, until the cranberries have plumped up and the orange juice has evaporated. Set aside to cool.
  4. Add the bananas to the mixing bowl and mash thoroughly with a fork. Add the sugar, soaked camelina, oil and orange extract and stir well.
  5. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda over the banana mixture and fold in. Fold in the cranberries and walnuts. If the mixture is very stiff, stir in 1 tbsp of water.
  6. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the surface. Sprinkle the golden linseed evenly over the surface. Bake for about 50-60 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
  7. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then remove and place on a cooling rack.

* You can replace the orange juice in the recipe with 4 tablespoons of a vegan friendly orange liqueur such as Cointreau (and use the remaining orange in a fruit salad!).




Carol Kearns
Carol Kearns

Author



4 Responses

Vwilson
Vwilson

January 26, 2018

Lovely recipe, have made this with a lemon too, instead of an orange. ☺️

Sam Morris
Sam Morris

January 07, 2018

This looks and sounds absolutely delicious! And I just so happen to have some camelina seeds to give it a try ?

Nick
Nick

December 20, 2017

Oops! Thank you for pointing out our mistake Emma. I’ve now corrected the recipe to say “soaked camelina” (ie the egg replacement) not “eggs”.

Emma
Emma

December 19, 2017

It says eggs in the body of the recipe?

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