Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Recipe: allergen free chocolate cake

You may or may not be aware of the fact that I have had to be pretty much allergen free since Kalah was 3 weeks old. She is intolerant to dairy (both cow and goat), soy, nut, and egg proteins as well as gluten intolerant. It has made for interesting eating. 

However, we have figured it out and life goes on and you simply adjust.

One thing I have truly missed are desserts. After all, who doesn't love a really amazing scoop of ice cream, or a brownie, or whatever sweet treat to round out your day.

Well, I no longer long! I have finally created an amazing, delicious, sweet, crave fulfilling, allergen and gluten-free, vegan chocolate cake! WOAH!

Want in on the secret? Here's the recipe!



Ingredients for cake
  • 1¾ cups plantain flour
  •  2 cups granulated sugar
  •  ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (mine was simply ground up cacao and had no other ingredients)
  • 1½ tsp baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon salt
  • tbs of chia seeds ground and mixed with 6 tbs of water
  • ½ cup cream of coconut (I used Goya)
  • ½ cup non-dairy fat, melted (I used solid palm oil)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup hot coffee (I like coffee so I made mine strong!)

Ingredients for frosting
  • Non-dairy fat, at room temperature (i used solid palm oil)
  • Powdered sugar
  • Cocoa powder
  • Vanilla
  • Coconut cream
  • Coffee

Instructions for cake
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch pan (or line with parchment paper circles) and set aside.
  2. Grind chia seeds in a food processor or coffee grinder and mix with water, let stand
  3. In the large bowl of a standing mixer, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add chia mixture, coconut cream, melted palm oil and vanilla extract and beat until smooth (about 3 minutes). Remove bowl from mixer and stir in hot coffee with a rubber spatula. Batter should form a ball and not "pourable" (this is because of the coconut cream, which will make the cake melt and caramelise. If it is too runny your cake will not set).
  4. Pour batter evenly between the two pans and bake on middle rack of oven for about 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean with just a few moist crumbs attached.
  5. When out of oven allow cake to sit for 5 minutes then spread the frosting on the top
  6. Allow to cool, then serve and enjoy!
Note: This cake should turn out gooey if you put the frosting on when it is warm. If you would like to wait until the cake is cool to put on your frosting you will get a normal cake with a more standard style frosting. 

Grinding Chia Seeds... even a preschooler can do it! 

Our ground up seeds.... they don't have to be perfect.

What they look like after being mixed with water.

Instructions for frosting
  1. Start with your room temperature fat, add in powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
  2. Add vanilla, coconut cream, and coffee until you can blend it well and the mixture is spreadable.
  3. Add additional ingredients to your liking and mix until you can easily spread it over the cake 

The final product (this is the frosted cake)

I will one day learn to take better pictures of what I make. For now, it is what it is. You can make the cake yourself and revel in the real life gloriousness that is this allergen-free vegan cake! 

WARNING: As this cake contains coffee do not consume it at 8:00 at night right before you attempt to go to sleep (right Pip?)

Served on a platter ready to consume!
(no, this is not figs as someone on Facebook guessed)

For those of you in Cuenca here are the sources of my ingredients:
  • Cocoa powder - Supermaxi (double check the ingredients list, but I found one with no dairy and no soy)
  • Plantain flour - Supermaxi (it's right in the flour section and runs like $.90 per bag)
  • Palm oil - Supermaxi (it's with the margarine, comes in a white bag, and is also about $.90)
  • Baking soda - This one is a pain. I actually brought mine from the US. They sell it at some pharmacies, you have to ask around. They sell it in limited quantities. 
  • Chia Seeds - There is a new health stand at Supermaxi Las Americas. They sell them there. It is the same name in Spanish and English. If you live on the other side of town try downtown. There are many natural health stores that carry them.
  • Coconut Cream - Supermaxi (it is where they sell the baking supplies. It is very pricey at about $5 per can)

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