Vegan Cranberry Orange Cake with Dates Oil-Free Whole Grain Fruit Sweetened

Colors pop and flavors dazzle in this dense satisfying holiday cake that’s all about the cranberries! Frosting makes this cake a gloriously festive dessert. Or skip the frosting and enjoy it as a healthy snack on the go.

HAVING YOUR CAKE AND YOUR HEALTH TOO

Guilt-free? Of course! In the world of whole food plant-based baking, all cakes are guilt-free because only ingredients that nourish the body and promote well are used. Cake for breakfast becomes a health conscious lifestyle practice instead of a decadent indulgence. A fruity satisfying cake like this one delivers a symphony of health promoting ingredients in an irresistible form. If you want to frost this cake, I recommend my Silken Tofu Based Vegan Cardamom Frosting or Kite Hill Cream Cheese Vegan Cardamom Frosting. But although frosting takes this cake to a different, and more festive level, it is tasty and moist enough to be enjoyed without frosting.

CRANBERRY LOVE, FRESH OR FROZEN

This cake is a wonderful treat during the winter holidays when fresh cranberries are everywhere. But if you love the tart juicy magic of cranberries, stash some extra bags of fresh cranberries into the freezer and save them for later. They freeze beautifully and can be used in recipes year round, no thawing necessary. Tart as can be with a lovely pop of bright red color, fresh or frozen cranberries are the fruity opposite of Deglet Noor dates which are visually understated with a soft caramel-like flavor. The contrast is what makes them so good together!

BLENDER OR FOOD PROCESSOR NEEDED

You’ll need a blender or food processor for this recipe in order to create the fruit smoothie that does so many great things for this cake! A high speed blender is best, if you have one, but if you don’t you can use a regular blender or a food process. Electronic appliances like food processors and high blenders allow us to quickly and easily harness the power of whole plant foods, eliminating the need for ingredients like oil, sugar, white flour and eggs which are calorie dense and comparatively low in nutrients.

DRIED FRUITS FOR SUGAR AND OIL FREE BAKING

Dates are my favorite whole food plant-based sweetening ingredient. Here they are used in two ways: chopped and folded into the batter along with the cranberries, and as part of a dried fruit smoothie, which locks in moisture making added oil unnecessary, while also sweetening and binding. You can think of dried fruit smoothies in baking as an egg, oil and sugar substitute all rolled into one. In this particular cake, prunes are also included in the smoothie, adding to the complexity of flavor while bolstering nutrient content. Orange juice adds more flavorful sweetness and is the primary liquid ingredient.

I recommend always chopping pitted dates and prunes before measuring them, checking to make sure that there are no pits and hard bits in your fruit. More often than not, especially when it comes to dates, pitted means mostly pitted, and there will always be a few hard stems. If you chop or slice dates and prunes before measuring them, you can inspect them for hard bits at the same time. Chopping before measuring also allows you to pack your fruit more tightly into a measuring cup which gives you more consistent results.

MAKE YOUR OWN OAT FLOUR

If you want to use store bought oat flour, that’s fine. But making your own oat flour is easy, fast and economical. All you need is rolled oats, old fashioned or quick, and a food processor or high speed blender. Place your oats in your processor or blender and pulse until you get flour. Don’t over process your oat flour because it will become sticky and not work as well in your recipes. As far as flour texture goes, oat flour that’s a little coarse works better for most types of baking. Don’t try to make too much at a time. Small batches, no more than a cup and a half at a time, are better. I usually only process the amount I’m about to use in a recipe. One cup of oats makes approximately one cup of oat flour.

CAKE PANS

This recipe can be used to make a single layer 8 inch or 9 inch round cake, or a compact 6 inch round two layer cake. Unfrosted, you can serve it as a delicious snack, breakfast or healthy dessert. Frost it with Healthy Vegan Cardamon Frosting and it becomes a full-fledged celebration.

STICK PROOFING

Home baking requires time and effort. The last thing anyone wants is for the fruit of all that effort to end up falling apart because it got stuck to a pan or baking sheet. Using oil or butter to grease pans is the old fashioned way to get things not to stick. It works, especially if you also add a layer of flour or some other starch, and I still do it sometimes. But because I prefer to avoid using added fats in my cooking, I like to use parchment paper liners whenever possible. You can get parchment paper and baking cups just about anywhere and that’s all you need for baking sheets and muffin pans. Cake and loaf pans are tricker because pre-formed liners for these pans are not available at most local grocery stores. You can make your own parchment paper liners by carefully folding parchment paper to fit the pan. However, I prefer getting preformed liners online. These liners not only help me avoid using added fats, they also save time.

When I’m out of liners, don’t want to deal with folding parchment paper, or if I don’t have the right size liner for the pan I want to use, I’m a stickler about greasing and dusting my cake pans even if it means being less whole food plant-based adherent. Not only are cakes much less likely to stick if pans are greased and floured instead of just being greased, but the flour also acts as a protective barrier keeping the grease away from the cake itself. If not using a liner, springform pans are my preferred pans for cakes because they allow easier unmolding that is less disruptive to the cake. I also like to line the bottom of my greased cake pans with parchment paper. But if you do a thorough job greasing and flouring, regular cake pans without parchment paper will work fine so long as you allow the cake to cool down before unmolding. For grease you can use oil, vegan butter or even coconut oil. For dusting, white flour is usually recommended but almost any flour or starch works.

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