Can I Use Something Else Instead Of Ground Almonds For The Chocolate Fruit Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Fruit Cake (from FEAST) is a very popular alternative to a traditional rich fruit cake as it is very moist and does not need "maturing". The cake is made with a combination of ground almonds and flour and also contains honey. The honey and almonds both help to keep the cake moist.

You can replace the honey with an equal quantity of golden syrup, agave syrup or light corn syrup. It is more difficult to replace the ground nuts as if you replace them with extra flour it could make the cake a little dry. Chestnuts are a different family to tree nuts, so if the people the cake is intended for can tolerate chestnuts then you might like to try Nigella's Easy-Action Christmas Cake as an alternative, as this uses chestnut puree rather than ground nuts. If that is also not an option then the only thing we can suggest is to try using ground sunflower seeds as an alternative to the ground nuts in the Chocolate Fruit Cake, as they are also high in fat and have a fairly neutral taste. You may be able to buy ground sunflower seeds, but if you can't then you can grind them yourself and we suggest putting 75g sunflower seeds into a food processor with the 150g flour and pulsing until the seeds are fairly finely ground. Make sure the sunflower seeds are unsalted. Grinding the seeeds with the flour reduces the risk of the seeds being over worked and becoming oily. However, please note that we have not tried making the cake with these alternatives, so we are unable to guarantee the results.