Hi there! The atmosphere here at Naish Farm, home of Honeybuns bakery, is becoming decidedly festive, with lovely Christmas kitchen smells wafting around every corner. There is the scent of orange, cinnamon and toasted nuts in the air, and our courier drivers are dropping timely hints about their favourite festive Honeybuns cakes.

To get ready for the season of foodie feasts we’ve rounded up our favourite Honeybuns gluten free treats to serve this Christmas. Included are handy vegan options which can be kept frozen until you need them. You’ll also find serving suggestions and gift ideas to lighten your Christmas foodie workload. These cakes can also be served as puddings and offer an interesting alternative to your usual ye olde traditional iced Christmas cake.

1. Vegan Mincemeat Crumble Slice

Available in our online shop as individually wrapped slices from £1.60 and as a 15 portion uncut tray bake at £19.50.

Gluten free ingredients information

This gorgeous bake is made up of three layers, all made by hand in our dedicated gluten free bakery. Ideal for coeliacs and vegans, our Mincemeat Crumble Slice is gluten free, dairy free and accredited by the Vegan Society.

Let’s start with the shortbread style base. This is a blend of cashew nuts, date juice, polenta, flax seed and British rapeseed oil and is packed to the rafters with protein and healthy Omega 3 fatty acids. The mincemeat layer is made with vegan friendly, gluten free suet. The crumble is a deluxe mix of gluten free oats, flaxseed, cinnamon and orange zest with a dusting of icing sugar.

Vegan dessert serving suggestions

These seasonal crumble slices taste great at room temperature or you can easily heat them up as a pud. Just pop a slice in the microwave (minus any wrapping) on full power for 1 to 1 ½ minutes. Or pop in a preheated oven at 180°C/Gas 4 for 5 minutes.

Try serving with a frozen vegan alternative to ice cream. We like Swedish Glace Vanilla non dairy frozen dessert (£2.50 for 750ml, available from most supermarkets).

Alternative Christmas cake idea

Our Mincemeat Crumble traybake can be cut into 15 x square portions and stacked on a cake stand. You can then decorate with mini bunches of rosemary tied with ribbon, strips of orange zest and a dusting of icing sugar.

Top Festive Cake Decorating Tip

For vegan and food safe DIY holly decorations you’ll need:

Cherry tomatoes. These need to be nice and firm not mushy.
3 bay leaves. Fresh will be better than dried.
Sticky vegan and gluten free jam.
Vegan and gluten free red and green glitter. We love rainbow dust in rose and holly green from The Cake Decorating Company.
Cocktail sticks and a shallow bowl.

How to make your plant based cake decorations:

– Decant your red and green glitter into 2 shallow bowls.

– Pop a cocktail stick into your cherry tomato and dunk into your sticky jam.

– Roll your tomato on a stick into the red glitter and set aside.

– Dunk your bay leaves in sticky jam.

– Place the topside of the bay leaf down into the green glitter and shake off any excess.

– Assemble your red berry and three bay leaves on top of your mincemeat stack.

2. Plant based Millionaire’s Slice

Available in our online shop as individually wrapped slices from £1.60 and as a 15 portion uncut tray bake at £19.50.

Gluten free ingredients information

Here we’ve got a slightly crunchier biscuit base compared to the mincemeat crumble one. This is down to the addition of muscovado sugar as well as the usual date juice and paste. Again, we’ve included our favourite blend of almonds, polenta and flaxseed for maximum flavour, texture and nutritional benefits.(Namely Omega 3 and protein and vitamin E).

The caramel layer is home made by us using date paste, maple syrup, almond paste and coconut oil.

The dark chocolate top layer is reassuringly generous- we’ve not skimped on anything here!

Vegan Christmas Cake decorating ideas

Cut your tray bake into 15 x square portions and stack up on your chosen cake stand.

Scatter with chocolate shavings – you can make these yourself by peeling chocolate from a bar of a chocolate, just ensure it’s certified vegan and gluten free. Moo Free are good and widely available.

We also love this gold lustre dust, suitable for vegans and gluten free, available from the Cake Decorating Company.

How about going completely OTT and scattering your stack with fancy foil wrapped chocolate coins? Divine do delicious gluten free and dairy free coins.

3. Dark Chocolate Brownie with Orange

Available in our online shop as individually wrapped slices from £1.60 and as a 15 portion uncut tray bake at £19.50.

All natural gluten free ingredients

This is one of the first cakes we created at Honeybuns. The orange zest, oil and coffee marry beautifully with the intense dark chocolate (73% cocoa). We aim to deliver on flavour and texture, hence we include molten chocolate as well as chocolate pieces in the mix. Ditto we use ground almonds as well as toasted chunks of almond for a little bit of bite. The intense chocolate flavour has depth and lingers-in a good way!

Quick and easy Gluten free dessert

Either pop your unwrapped brownie slice in the microwave on full power for 1 minute or into a preheated oven at 180°C/Gas 4 for 5 minutes.

Serve with Judes vanilla ice cream and optional cheeky splash or grand Marnier orange liquer.

Crème fraiche with orange zest and a drop of vanilla stirred in also works well.

Stack ‘Em up

After portioning and stacking your brownie cakes up in the usual way you can then decorate with gold dust (previously mentioned) and dried orange segments.

If you don’t want to make your own dried orange slices you can buy these beauties from Sous Chef– and for extra ooooh la la you can half dip them in dark chocolate–