Chocolate Cake with Fudge Frosting (sugar, dairy and grain free)

Well, hello, hello. Of course it had to be a chocolate cake to entice me back blogging.

This cake will look very familiar to many of you, I expect: remember The Best Brownie recipe from years ago? I felt the time was right to drag it out of obscurity, dust it down and tweak it a little. Now it’s more cake-y and with a spectacular frosting I think you will love!

I’m getting increasingly pernickety about what I eat in my advancing years. I feel crap when I eat dairy, sugar and wheat, so try not eat them, which makes baking very exciting; and there is nothing more exciting than a fudgy chocolate cake with a fudgy frosting that is 90% vegetables (possibly even more than 90%, but then, math has never been my strong suit).

This cake is nutritionally dense: great for your brain, great for your gut 🙂

This cake is also vegan, sugar-free, dairy-free, nut-free and grain-free using whatever swaps below.

Most importantly, though, despite how healthy it sounds, it still tastes delicious.

Some notes:

• Especially with the frosting, this cake needs no more sweetener, but, if you are sweeter-toothed, I would perhaps up the sweetener a bit (no more than 1 cup). Try it with ½ cup first. My youngest son who Hates sugar-free baking and also Hates vegetables (I hope my eyeballs don’t fall out from all the rolling) ate most of this cake (without frosting) and declared it one of his favourite chocolate cakes, ever.
• I used to make this in it’s former-brownie-incarnation with maple syrup, but a granulated sweetener like xylitol (birch-tree syrup, poisonous to dogs, so do be careful) or coconut sugar makes it more cake-like. I used xylitol here.
• Do use a food processor to create the right texture.

Ingredients:

3 cups (400g) of grated sweet potato

1 avocado

5 medjool dates

½ cup (110g) melted coconut oil [or butter]

2 medium eggs [I use our own eggs, but when I don’t have any, use a chia or flax egg, both work just as well]

½ cup cacao or cocoa powder [cacoa is more nutritionally dense]

½ cup sweetener: maple syrup or coconut sugar or xylitol [maple syrup will make a softer textured cake]

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of coconut flour [or a grain flour; but if you do, double quantities to 4 tablespoons as coconut flour soaks up a lot more moisture]

 

Frosting:
1 cup of soft medjool dates

½ cup of hot water

½ cup of cacoa or cocoa powder

1 tablespoon almond butter [omit if nut-free]

Sprinkle of salt

1 teasp vanilla

 

Method:

Make the frosting first: Whizz up the frosting ingredients in a blender until silky smooth. Refrigerate for about an hour before spreading over your cake.

Preheat the oven to 180’C / 365’F.

Prepare your tin(s): I used an 8″ square parchment-lined tin, but plan to make it in two round tins and sandwich with frosting next time.

Grate the sweet potato (I used the food processor)

Add the avocado and eggs and blitz until slushy. Add in the rest of the ingredients, pulse until it looks like a lumpy batter.

Pour it into a tin, smooth out the top and put it into the oven for 25-30 minutes until firm.

When cool, spread the frosting thickly on top. This is delicious with fresh fruit!

Eat and be smug.

 

 

• Chocolate cake,
• dairy free,
• grain free,
• healthy cake,
• nutritionally dense chocolate cake,
• sugar free,
• sweet potato cake,
• vegan,
• vegan fudge frosting