No fat, no added sugar, fruit cake

800g mixed dried fruit
2 cups of fruit juice
2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
mixed spice - to taste

Soak the fruit in the fruit juice overnight - prune juice makes it nice and rich almost as though it has treacle in it
Stir in the flour and mixed spice
Bake at Gas 2/ Electric 150C for 2 hours (or until cooked - skewer test comes out clean)
Cover with greaseproof paper if it is browning too fast

Choose your fruits carefully as most cranberries are sweetened, mixed peel is "candied" therefore sugar is used, glacé cherries are in a sugar syrup (some of which can be rinsed off)

Add a few drops of almond essence and it is a bit like having Xmas cake with marzipan on it - even add some chopped nuts or almonds
You can use any other flour if you have found one that doesn't spike your bs (such as quinoa etc but you will need baking powder)

I'm going to try some rum soaked fruit that I got cheap as its BBE is in June and being sort of seasonal they must've wanted it off the shelves

Ring the changes - use just sultanas and ginger instead of mixed spice, swap quarter of the flour for oatmeal - and you've got ginger cake (pineapple or orange juice work well for this). Dates, prunes and walnuts (with the prune juice) without spices for date and walnut cake. Chopped dried apple rings (only 200-400gs though as they are quite light), using apple juice and cinnamon....

It makes a big cake so you could portion and freeze it - work out your carbs/sugars and make a label for the bag so you know just what you are eating

Sit back with a cuppa and ENJOY but not TOO MUCH

If you invent another variation and it turns out scrummy please let me know so I can try it too

))Denise(( said:

Just because this cake has no sugar (sucrose) in it, it still has loads of natural sugars which are full of carbs. I wouldn't be able to eat this without it really spiking my blood sugar.

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Hi Denise

It's a shame you won't be able to try it. I realise that it does have lots of fruit sugars in it (hence the titling of no ADDED sugar) and so won't be suitable for everyone but that's why I suggested portioning it and working out the carbs for the portions. My portions are small rectangles about the size of those boxes of Whitworths snack raisins. As we all need our "5 a day" which is in truth suggested to be more like 9 a day, it goes a little way towards this in an "indulgent" sort of way. You could soak the fruit in plain water instead of fruit juice to reduce the sugars somewhat.

tomvonc said:

I dont understand how that cake would hold together without any eggs.

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Hi Tovonc

Holds together beautifully - give it a try and you'll see . Just use half the recipe for a smaller cake to try it if you aren't convinced

Yorksman said:

The recipe calls for 800g of mixed dried fruit which has about 500g carbs. However, I don't know how much cake this makes or how many slices you'll get out of it but I can see that this would put people off. Things like walnuts however, hazelnuts or spices like cinnamon will make obviously different cakes but also quite nice tasting cakes. You lose the chew of dried fruit, but you get the crunch of the nut.

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Hi Yorksman

8" square cake about 2" deep (I think that's about 20 cms x 5 cms)

The walnuts and almonds I added (different cakes) were nice, probably weighed no more than 100gs though but I'm sure the mixture would take more. You'd probably need to reduce the fruit juice somewhat as there would be less dried fruit to soak it up - I guess if you estimate half a cup to 200g of fruit you could work it from there and if the mixture seems too dry once the flour is in add a little more juice at that stage.

That's the fun of having a basic recipe - adding stuff and taking it away to see what other flavours and textures work well together