CHOCOLATE HEAVEN

I LOVE chocolate and not just any chocolate, I want a chocolate to be rich, creamy and decadent with a long lasting mouth feel (sigh).....just thinking about it makes me happy and relaxed. Thats why emotions can be a deadly combination with great chocolate: feel sad....eat chocolate, feel stressed...eat chocolate....feel angry...eat chocolate, do you notice any common denominators here, I do.

So when my birthday came along awhile back, what did I REALLY want......I wanted to eat chocolate.  I decided to make myself a gluten free Birthday Chocolate Cake:) I decided to lower the carbs (carbohydrates), lower the (GI) glycaemic index and reduce the sugar intake in the cake. This is my Chocolate cake from HEAVEN. I served it with a ganache and a touch of cream (optional).

CHOCOLATE HEART CAKE

ORIGINAL RECIPE                             To Make it Dairy Free replace with

175 g  Chocolate (Dark chocolate)           Callebaut dark chocolate -DF

115 g  Butter                                             Coconut Oil

100 g  Almond Flour

60 g    Coco

1 tsp   Bicarbonate of Soda

1 tsp   Gluten Free Baking Powder

30 g    Coconut Flour,

100 g  Desiccated Coconut

250 g  Sugar

70 g    Dark Chocolate Chips                     Callebaut dark chocolate chips-DF

4         Organic Eggs

2 tsp   Vanilla Essence

125 ml Water

1 Tbsp Sunflower Oil 

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease well, a heart shaped mould or round cake mould.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl, over a double boiler.
3. Sieve the almond flour, coco, bicarb, baking powder  and coconut flour together. 
4. Stir into the almond flour, the desiccated coconut, sugar and the dark chocolate chips.
5. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, vanilla essence, water and oil. Mix in the melted chocolate & butter mixture.
6. Mix the egg mixture with the flour mix until well combined.  You may need to add a little extra water if the mixture is too dry. It should have the consistency of a thick batter.
7. Pour the batter into your mould and bake for 40-45 minutes. Then switch off your oven and allow the cake to stand in the oven for a further 15 minutes. 
8. Remove and let the cake rest for 10 minutes before you tip it out onto a stand.
9. Enjoy with ganache and cream. 
10. To follow through with a dairy free theme, replace cream with coconut cream and make the ganache with dairy free dark chocolate + coconut butter + a touch of coconut milk

OPTION: the cake batter can be baked in a long tray to make brownies but reduce the baking time to 20-25 minutes then and there is no need to leave the brownies to stand in the oven.