Description
A healthy holiday fruitcake with a twist: a layer of rich chocolate shortcrust, a vibrant and flavorful nut, fruit, and chocolate filling, enveloped in a light and airy meringue. This fruitcake with chocolate and meringue is gluten-free, lectin-free, and low in sugar compared to other classic fruitcakes and made with only wholesome, healthy ingredients. It tastes and smells like holidays.
Ingredients
FOR THE CHOCOLATE SHORTCRUST
- 50 grams almond flour
- 50 grams cassava flour
- 50 grams chestnut flour
- pinch of salt
- 20 grams cacao
- 2 tablespoons inulin powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- zest of one organic orange
- 40 ml cold milk (almond, hemp, tigernut milk, or A2 milk)
- 2 egg yolks (save the egg whites)
- 145 grams cold, unsalted French butter
FOR THE TOP LAYER (FILLING)
- 300 grams nuts and fruit mix made of 30g pistachios, 30g walnuts, 30g blanched almonds, 30g apricots, 80g Medjool dates, 30g dry aronia berries, 20g freeze-dried raspberries, 50g dark chocolate
- 50 grams tapioca flour/starch
- 2 teaspoons warming spices (use my holiday warming spice mix or a mix of warming spices: cinnamon, allspice, licorice, cloves, star anise, cardamom, tonka beans)
- zest of 2 organic oranges
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (careful not to add more as it will become too strong!), which can be replaced with rum (read notes)
- pinch of salt
- 3 whole eggs + 2 egg white saved from the chocolate layer
- 2 tablespoons monk fruit or another sweetener
Instructions
MAKE THE CHOCOLATE SHORTCRUST
- Mix all the ingredients in a bowl (saving the two egg whites), in the listed order, then grate the cold butter straight from the refrigerator and add it to the bowl. Mix with the hands just enough to make a dough, but don’t overmix. Form a ball, then flatten it into an 8×8 inch square on a plastic wrap, wrap it around and place it in the refrigerator for one hour.
PREPARE THE FILLING
- Make the dry nut and fruit mix. Roughly chop the nuts (walnuts, pecans, pistachios, blanched almonds) and the bigger dry fruits, the dark chocolate, and add them to a mixing bowl. Add the smaller fruits, whole (unsweetened aronia berries, cherries, cranberries, freeze-dried raspberries), add the spices and flavors, salt, and tapioca, and mix well so all the pieces are coated in the tapioca flour. If bigger pieces get stuck into clusters, separate them.
- After one hour has passed, take the dough out of the fridge. Line an 8×8 inch square baking sheet/pan with parchment paper, flip the dough onto the baking sheet and spread it out with your fingers to cover the entire pan (if it doesn’t fit already), and push it up the edges for about 1/2 inch or less. Cover the dough with plastic and put it back in the fridge for another 30 minutes while you prepare the filling.
- Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C.
- Separate the yolks from the whites, add the yolks to a big mixing bowl, mix it with the sweetener, and beat it until creamy. Beat the 5 egg whites in a bowl until stiff.
- Slowly incorporate the egg whites into the egg yolks, gently folding them in with a spatula. Then add the nut and fruit mix, folding them in until they are evenly distributed (don’t overmix).
- Take the baking pan out of the fridge, add the filling on top of the dough, level with a spatula, and bake for 10 minutes at 350F/180C. Then turn the heat down to 320F/160C and bake for 35 more minutes (maybe a few minutes less if your oven runs hot).
- When it is done, take the baking sheet out, and let it rest, at room temperature, in the baking sheet, for about 6 hours or overnight until the meringue dries. Pop it in the fridge for an hour or two before slicing it.
- Slice and serve. Store in the refrigerator or freeze.
Notes
You need an 8×8-inch baking pan with tall walls or something similar that can fit this quantity. This recipe is made for a metal sheet, I haven’t tested it with a ceramic or glass dish, so times might differ.
If you can’t have any of the three flours I used, use a mix of the remaining two to make 150 grams mix.
Feel free to adapt your nut and fruit mix depending on what you find available, keeping the proportions described in the post (just a few high-sugar fruits, lots of dried unsweetened berries, and nuts).
If you don’t like the almond flavor (marzipan-like), feel free to use rum by lightly soaking some of the dry fruits. But don’t use too much liquid, and don’t soak the freeze-fried fruits, as they’ll become mushy. For example, I would only soak the dry aronia berries and discard the liquid when I add them to the mix.
Surprisingly this fruitcake can be frozen, and it keeps the texture when thawed. So feel free to prepare it in advance. Otherwise, it can be stored in the fridge for about three days.
