7 Classic Paleo Fruitcakes That Don’t Suck

Fruitcake may get a bad rap for being dry and icky, studded with fake red and green “cherries” at Christmas time. Homemade fruitcake, though, with real fruits and delicious nuts, is the opposite—moist and perfect. Try out these paleo fruitcake recipes and change your family’s mind about this holiday classic.

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1. Paleo Fruit Cake
You don’t need white flour, white sugar, and fake cherries to make fruit cake. This version is healthier with almond flour, tapioca flour, eggs, raw honey, clarified butter or ghee, ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, dates, raisins, dried cherries, and other dried fruits. It’s both tasty and healthy!

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Photo: The View from Great Island

2. Paleo Fruit and Nut Bread
With less than ten ingredients, this fruit and nut bread/breakfast bread/fruitcake is delicious no matter what you call it. Ripe bananas are the only sweetened, making it added-sugar-free! Flax seeds make it extra nutritious, too, and you can choose fruits like pineapple and blueberries for a unique flavor.

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3. Easy Paleo Fruitcake
The ingredients in this version of paleo fruitcake are a little simpler, with blanched almond flour, dates, raisins, cherries, walnuts, eggs, coconut oil, coconut sugar, vanilla, and citrus zest. I love the bright flavor orange zest and lemon zest add to this cake.

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4. Boozy Christmas Cake
Fruitcake is traditionally a Christmas cake anyway, and this Christmas cake takes celebration to a whole new level with mixed dried fruit, chopped pistachios, lemon and orange zest, and rum. Of course, my favorite part is the caramel sauce with cardamom, ground ginger, and more.

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5. Paleo Chestnut Fruitcake
Don’t be intimidated by the longer list of ingredients in this fruitcake. The flavors are fabulous, and it’s extra fancy with chopped chestnuts, dates, and apricots, vanilla and almond extracts, and a coconut glaze drizzled over the top. Optional: soak your dried fruits in rum first!

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Photo: Cave Girl

6. Paleo Christmas Cake
This cake is a true treat with natural sugars in the form of apricots, dates, figs, cranberries, currants, raisins, and prunes. Fancy it up with vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered ginger. You can even make it boozy by drizzling with rum when it’s all finished.

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7. Grandma’s Boiled Fruitcake
You can make a super-simple fruitcake with canned crushed pineapple, dried mixed fruit, pumpkin puree, coconut flour, almond meal, and arrowroot. This one is easily customizable depending on what mixed spices you’d like to add, and which fruits you choose.