Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake

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I haven’t written a blog post for a while now. I haven't done much cooking recently as I have had all my wisdom teeth out. I have been living off soup, milkshakes and a strange concoction of painkillers...so not too much to write about! During the last week my family have been wonderful, cooking food, making me milkshakes and being incredibly understanding. So…to thank them I decided to bake a chocolate cake.

 

 I chose to make a slightly healthier version than the one I usually make. This recipe has sorghum flour in it. One cup of this lovely stuff will provide you with half your RDA of fiber, 43% of your RDA of protein and is packed full of minerals! You can’t really ask much more from a flour!

I have also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. It doesn’t effect the taste at all…the coco powder is so strong you can almost get away with whatever oil you want (just not the flavored ones, nobody wants a garlic chocolate cake!). Olive oil is an excellent source of monounsaturated fat, which can lower your risk of heart disease. It has been said that it is good for your hair and skin too. However, the main benefit of olive oil for coeliacs is that some research shows that it can help boost calcium absorption … which is absolutely vital as coeliacs need twice as much calcium as everybody else.

You will also see that I have used Agave gum…again. I may have an addiction to this stuff. Sweet, healthy and low in calorie!

So there is no excuse to not eat chocolate cake!! You can eat chocolate cake knowing that it will fill you up, help your diet (unless your calorie counting…then maybe just a small slice!) and it will taste delicious too!

For the cake:

 

½ cup Sorghum Flour

½ cup Doves Self Raising Flour

½ cup Agave Nectar

1/3 cup Granulated Sweetener

½ cup Icing Sugar

1 ½ tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda

½ tsp. Xanthan Gum

½ cup Coco Powder (unsweetened)

1 tsp. Vanilla Essence

50ml Milk

½ cup Olive Oil

For the icing:

 300g Icing Sugar

100g Unsalted Butter (room temperature)

40g Coco Powder

40ml Whole milk

Directions:

Pre heat the oven to 180^oC

Add all of the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir together

Into the bowl add the wet ingredients

The mixture can be a bit thick – so add a little more milk if it is difficult to whisk

Whisk (with an electric whisk) for about 3 minutes

Grease 2 circular cake tins with a little oil

Pour the mixture into the cake tins and bake for 20 minutes

For the icing, simply sift the coco powder and the icing sugar and add the butter and milk

Whisk with an electronic whisk for about 5 minutes

 Once the cakes are out of the oven, place them on a cooling rack. This will prevent them from becoming soggy.

Only when the cakes are completely cool, add the icing to the center and on top of the cake.

Decorate with whatever you like – enjoy!