This Holiday season make the best 5 ingredient fruit cake ever. Vegan , this cake is made with gluten-free flour, candied fruits, nuts, orange juice along with some zest and some baking powder in an Instant Pot. This holiday season spend time with your loved ones instead of the kitchen and wow your friends and family with this cake. Video Recipe.

Fruit cake anyone? We just perfected this delicious holiday fruit cake recipe in our Instant Pot. Literally a dump and stir recipe that is not only delicious but made with minimal ingredients. Make it ahead of time or last minute in your Instant Pot, you are sure to please a crowd. This is the easiest and best holiday fruit cake recipe ever. I am so excited to share this with you today. Happy Holidays!!!

Fruit Cake

Name: Best 5 Ingredient Fruit Cake
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 cups Gluten Free Flour; 1/2 cup Candied Fruit Mix; 2 cups Orange Juice; 1/2 cup unsalted mixed nuts (optional); 4 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest (optional); 2 cups water; 1 teaspoon oil

I am sure at some point or the other you had consumed a fruit cake, especially during Christmas. It's a dense cake made with lots and lots of candied fruits and nuts.

Fruitcake was originally invented as a way to preserve fruit: a cake full of fresh or freshly candied fruit was baked in the summer, then continually soaked with alcohol for months until Christmas. Then, in the dead of winter, you could have fruit, albeit in boozy cake form.

They've been around in one form or another since at least Roman times. Every country has it's own variation of the fruit cake and it can either be found year round or during Christmas.

Fruit Cakes got a bad reputation ever since the packaged food industry got involved: they started making cheaper, faster versions that could be store bought, which meant switching from fresh fruit and alcohol to heavily preserved fruits which made them very sugary.

Additionally, traditional fruit cake (owing to the alcohol content) lasts a very long time without going moldy. Thus the joke that nobody actually eats fruit cake; everyone just keeps passing the same fruit cake around and around.

So we've given the traditional Fruit Cake a healthier twist by making it vegan and skipping the alcohol and instead using orange juice.

Growing up in India, although the Fruit Cake was available all through out the year at retail stores and bakeries, the best Fruit Cakes were often the homemade Christmas gifts sent by neighbors and friends celebrating Christmas. It was always fun to sample the cakes and figure out who sent the best one :)

Why you will love this Fruit Cake?

It's Vegan
No soaking required
No fancy ingredient list
Made in Instant Pot (tested with both cake and manual pressure mode)
Perfect for last minute Christmas gift or treat
Fully loaded with candies fruits and nuts
Save money, by making 3 homemade cakes for the price of 1 store bought cake

Instant Pot Fruit Cake in 4 steps

I have always enjoyed relishing this cake as a child but not sure why I never tried to make this earlier. So this holidays season I really wanted to try baking this cake in my Instant Pot. I just wanted a simple recipe with minimal ingredients that can be made in an Instant Pot but at the same time it had to be vegan . Honestly I found none. If I found vegan and gluten-free recipes I didn't find the Instant Pot settings for it so I decided to experiment and play around myself.

In the first attempt, we burnt the nuts on the top layer. Finally in our second attempt we corrected our mistake and the cake turned out exactly like a cake should turn out. There are literally 4 steps.

Make the cake batter by combining flour, candied fruits, nuts, orange juice, some zest and some baking powder. You could also use other flours to make this recipe just the liquid ratio will slightly increase.
Pour batter into the springfoam pan and cover it with an aluminum foil.
Heat water and keep springfoam pan on a trivet in the inner pot.
Cover lid, set cooking mode and wait for 50 minutes.

Bake a cake in Instant Pot, without cake mode?

If you choose an Instant Pot that does not have the "cake" function but has the "manual" function or "pressure cook" function, you may still make a cake with the functions below but typically only Cheescakes or more dense cakes rather than moist ones.

Less (low) - Lighter moist cakes
Normal (medium) - Denser moist cakes
More (high) - New York style cheesecakes

We tried this recipe two times, once in cake mode and second time in manual pressure cook mode. Both the times are consistency and texture was the same. So in short, even if you don't have a cake mode in your version of Instant Pot you can still make this Christmas Fruit Cake in your Instant Pot.

Hope you consider trying this Fruit Cake this holiday season. If you try it and like the recipe, please don;t forget to come back and leave us a comment and rate the recipe. Tag us using the hashtag #tbrtm on Instagram.

Fruit Cake Recipe

Best 5 Ingredient Fruit Cake

Yield: 6 inch

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

This Holiday season make the best 5 ingredient fruit cake ever. Vegan & Gluten-Free, this cake is made with gluten-free flour, candied fruits, nuts, orange juice along with some zest and some baking powder in an Instant Pot. This holiday season spend time with your loved ones instead of the kitchen and wow your friends and family with this cake.

Ingredients

2 cups Gluten Free Flour
1/2 cup Candied Fruit Mix
2 cups Orange Juice
1/2 cup unsalted mixed nuts (optional)
4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fresh orange zest (optional)
2 cups water
1 teaspoon oil

Instructions

Heat Instant Pot to “Saute. Add 2 cups of water and bring it to boil
In a mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, candied fruits, nuts, orange juice & orange zest. Mix well.
Grease the cake pan or springfoam pan with oil.
Pour the batter and evenly spread it.
Decorate using the cherries from the candied fruit mix and nuts.
Cover the cake pan with an aluminum foil, making sure you don't allow any moisture to go into the pan. At the same time do not cover it too tightly on the top. Make sure the nuts are not touching the aluminum foil and there is a gap on top.
Once the water in the inner pot starts bubbling, place the trivet inside with the handles on top. Place the cake pan.
Cake Mode / Manual / Pressure Cook - Normal Temperature for 50 minutes
Allow 10 minutes of natural pressure release.
Run a tooth pick test until the toothpick comes clean.
Open lid, use the trivet handles to remove the cake pan. Carefully open the foil and allow the cake to cool.

Notes

Nut-Free Fruit Cake

You can completely skip the nuts if you would like your cake to be nut-free.

Covering the Cake Pan

Make sure you don't allow any moisture to go into the pan. At the same time do not cover it too tightly on the top. Make sure the nuts are not touching the aluminum foil and there is a gap on top.

Bake it in the Oven

At 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

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