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Alida’s Nutty Fruitcake
Okay. I don’t ordinarily post recipes, but I made this for Christmas and was asked for the recipe by people who want to post it on their blog. I wanted my readers to have it first.
This is a gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free, heavy dark fruitcake with good flavor and texture.
Have ingredients at room temperature.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease with butter and then line with parchment or wax paper the bottoms and sides of your pans . This recipe is for 5 little bread pans or 2 regular bread pans. Assemble the ingredients below:
4 Cups finely ground raw almond flour
5 eggs
¾ lb or 3 sticks of butter (okay to use less)
1 ½ cups honey (use ½ cup less to make a breakfast bread)
¾ to 1 cup apple cider, or brandy
1 cup apple sauce
½ cup citrus peel diced into ¼ inch squares (lemon, orange, lime or grapefruit)
The juice of one lemon
1-teaspoon salt (use 1 tsp. more if butter is not salted)
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon or more cinnamon to taste
1-teaspoon or more ginger to taste
½-teaspoon or more cloves to taste
½-teaspoon or more cardamom
3-5 cups of dried fruit including currents, apricots, figs, cherries, etc
1-2 cups chopped pecans
Cut dried fruit into small pieces using a sharp knife or scissors. Set aside.
Grind raw almonds in food processor or blender to consistency of cornmeal. Place into large bowl, add and blend in baking soda, salt and spices.
In a food processor, or in a medium separate bowl, blend together the butter, honey, lemon juice, applesauce and eggs. If doing this by hand, first melt the butter, next add in honey and blend, and then add in beaten eggs and blend; add applesauce and blend. Add ¾ of the juice, applesauce or brandy to the egg mix and blend.
Slowly add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients (ground almonds etc.). The batter should be thick and sticky but not dry. Add additional liquid if needed. Add, by folding in, the dried fruit and chopped nuts one cup at a time until you are satisfied with the ratio of fruit and batter. I like a lot of fruit and nuts in mine so I add as almost as much as the batter can hold.
Spoon into greased and paper-lined bread pans. Fill almost to the top of the bread pan. Smooth with a spatula and decorate with whole pecans (optional). Cook in preheated oven for 2-5 hours (depending on pan size) or until a fork or toothpick comes out clean. You may want to turn the oven down to 300 after the first 45 minutes if the edges of fruitcake or the pecans on top start to look brown.
One note: eggs are the binder in this gluten-free fruitcake. When I made this with only four eggs it tended to crumble when sliced. Adding another egg solved the problem.