Two years ago I created one of my favourite recipes of all time: a lovely Christmas date cake, that was not only delicious, sweet and perfectly sticky, but also gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and nut free. The cake has been incredibly popular, and I’ve received a lot of thank you-messages, but also questions about bananas, and how they could be substituted in the recipe.

This in mind I was looking through the pictures and decided it was time to update both the recipe, and the pictures. It was a bit risky, because it’s by far the best Christmas date cake I’ve eaten, but the risk (haha) was worth taking – the cake turned out lovely.

I decided to substitute sweet potato for the bananas, since it was so nice in this Sweet Potato Chocolate cake I baked a while ago. To add even more Christmas spices and scent, I replaced the chaga mushroom tea with chai tea, and instead of coconut cream, I used oat cream “cheese” (In Finland it’s available under the brand Oatly). The cream cheese is so nice together with lucuma powder, which sweetens the frosting naturally.

(Please note, that if you have coeliac diseace or you’re allergic to grains, you might want to use coconut cream instead of oat cream cheese.)

The baking and photo shoot day was a bright and brisk winter day, with almost blue light, and the cake turned out as lovely as the day was. This Christmas instead of the date cake with bananas I’m going to bake this sweet potato version again – even my brother, who usually wants to have nothing to do with gluten and refined sugar free vegan cakes, had to admit that this Christmas date cake is delicious. A win for me, hah!

Please note that the cake just gets nicer if you bake it a day or two before, but the frosting doesn’t like waiting that much. So, frost the cake on the day you’re having it, and enjoy!

Tuulia xx

Lovely Christmas date cake (gluten free, dairy free, vegan, nut and soya free)

prepared in a 20 cm cake mold (with a removable bottom)

200 g pressed dates
1,5 dl water
2 dl virgin coconut oil
1 dl coconut sugar
2 dl sweet potato puree (from about 300 g piece of sweet potato)
1 dl coconut milk
2 dl rice flour
1,5 dl coconut flour
2 Tbsp psyllium
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ground dried ginger 
1 tsp ceylon cinnamon 
1 tsp cardamom 
1-2 dl chai tea 

Frosting:
2 cans of oat cream cheese
2-3 Tbsp lucuma powder 
(1-2 Tbsp maple syrup)

1. Heat the oven to 175 degrees. Cover the cake mold with parchment paper and oil it lightly. Prepare the sweet potato puree: peel and chop the sweet potato, and boil until done. Pour the water out and cool the sweet potato pieces down with cold water. Mash them with a fork. Boil some water for the chai tea, and prepare it as well. 

2. Mix the flours, psyllium, soda and spices together. Crumble the dates into a kettle, and boil with water for a couple of minutes, until the dates are soft and mixed with water. Add the coconut oil and sugar, sweet potato puree and coconut milk. Mix well, until the oil has mixed with the batter. 

3. Add the flours into the batter and mix well again, until it’s smooth. Then add the chai tea, and mix once more, until the batter is smooth and delicious – taste it, it’s so good. 

4. Spoon the batter into the cake mold and bake around 45-50 minutes, until the cake is done. Wait until the cake has cooled down before frosting or tasting it – this is important. 

5. While you wait for the cake to cool down, prepare the frosting: mix the ingredients, add sweetener if needed. 

6. When the cake is done, you’re ready to frost it. Decorate it as you wish.