Did anyone say chocolate & cake in the same sentence? With no (major) inflammatory ingredients? So you can make your cake & actually eat it?

Not sure how this recipe came about, but if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’ll know that I don’t do recipes. Can’t follow one to save my life. Cooking is a very non-rigid, freestyle, *throw* things together experience for me.

When it comes to baking, and even more so, gluten-free baking, I sort of try to write my success experiments down as gluten-free baking is more demanding. It’s not a case of just substituting flours and ingredients so don’t do huge experiments if you’re not used to it and don’t fancy creating some flops, haha.

I’ve made this one several times now, with some variations and it’s super yummy. You can add glazing and toppings if you wanna go fancy. As it’s a bigger cake, you can also freeze half of the batter to bake it another time or you can half the ingredients.

Gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free. It can also be made cacao free if you wish to stay off caffeine completely & can’t even tell the difference.

INGREDIENTS

200-250g (2 cups) chopped dates

160ml (¾ cup) water

80ml (⅓ cup or 6 tbsp) maple/date syrup

2 medium courgettes 

150ml (⅔ cup) coconut oil 

3 tbsp ground flax seeds / chia seeds  / psyllium husks (choose one)

Blend it all in a blender or food processor.

280g (2 cups) flour – single* (see the notes below) or a mix (rice / quinoa /chickpea / oat)

80g (5-6 tbsp) cacao powder or carob powder (if avoiding cacao)

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

Sieve & combine the flour, cacao & soda.

Mix the blender mix into the dry ingredients.

The batter is more like a dough, rather than runny. However, if it is too dry (feels very hard to mix), add a bit of water (1-3 tbsp). 

100g dark chocolate/carob bar (chopped) 

100g chopped walnuts or pecans

Fold into the cake mix.

Optional

Peel of 1 lemon (ideally organic) – the flavour is delicious!

A handful of chopped dried figs/apricots (or other) if you want a more indulgent cake

Add to the cake mix.

1. Preheat your oven to 170ºC/350ºF and grease a square baking tin (20 x 20cm)

2. Follow the steps listed in the ingredients section

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean-ish (you’ll see some melted chocolate on it)

4. Remove from the oven, let it cool and slice into squares

NOTES

1. Carob is a great substitute for chocolate of you cannot tolerate chocolate as it’s caffeine-free, but pretty much the same texture and a very similar taste to chocolate. You can find it in a powder form or as carob chocolate (looks like regular chocolate).

2. You can split the batter into 2 parts and use a bread tin (or another smaller tin) to bake half of it.

The rest of the batter can be frozen and you’ll have it ready for when you’re in a hurry. Wrap it in baking paper & add it to a plastic or another bag. Take it out of the freezer and let it sit in a room temperature for about 1h before baking.

3. * Flour taste from mild to distinct is as follows – rice, oat, chickpea, quinoa

Quinoa & chickpea have more protein. For a lighter, more cake-like taste, avoid using just quinoa flour.