Gluten free and dairy free fruit cake

Inspired by Frugalwoods among others me and Mr CB are having an 'Eat ALL The Things' month.  Throughout October we'll be eating our way through our cupboards and freezer to use up all those things that get pushed to the back of the cupboard, saving food waste and money at the same time.

It's been going well so far; I've come up with some meals which are new to us and we've been eating well and using up lots of forgotten food.  This morning I went through my baking cupboard and pulled out half packets of this and that and decided to use them up in a fruit cake.  It had to be gluten free as Mr CB is is a coelic so I found an easy recipe from Frugal Queen (here) and adjusted it using advice I found here.  I havn't converted 'normal' cake recipes before but the trick seems to be to add more moisture, an extra egg and just the right ratio of xanthan gum.  The result is a moist, sweet, easy to make cake that's gluten and dairy free.  I even managed to use up a small jar of mincemeat from last Christmas.  I made a note of the changes I made so here's the recipe.

300g Doves Farm gluten free self raising flour

300g sugar (I used light brown sugar to use up the leftovers of a bag)

1 tsp mixed cake spice

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

500g dried fruit (I mixed my jar of mincemeat with a handful of leftover dates and half a bag of sultanas to make it up to roughly 500g.

1/2 cup orange juice (or cold tea if you prefer)

2 eggs

Mix the dried fruit (and mincemeat if using) with the orange juice and microwave for 2 mins.  

Mix the dry ingredients so that they're well combined (important!) then add the fruit (complete with any orange juice that hasn't been soaked up) and eggs and mix the whole lot together well.  

Pour into a lined 7 inch cake time and let it sit for 10 mins; this allows the xanthan gum to get to work.

Bake at 180 C for about an hour.  When you insert a skewer into the middle and it comes out clean the cake's done.

Well writing out the recipe's given me a hankering for a mid afternoon slice so I'm off to go nom nom nom.