Devil’s Food Cake with Frosting (gluten free, paleo, dairy free)

This cake was so incredible, I broke my standard of one treat a day and had two pieces. And it was well worth it. My pals Rosie and Tim came over and both also gave it the thumbs up. They said you’d never even know it wasn’t a “normal”, sugar and wheat cake.

You’ll notice I used two types of cocoa powder, but I realize that one of them is a specialty product that most people won’t have on hand. No worries, just use all dutch cocoa if you don’t want to hunt down the Black Onyx cocoa. But if you do want to try it, I highly recommend it and you can pick it up from Savory spice shop online. (It tastes like the cookie part of Oreos.) I think it really adds a wonderful dimension to chocolate cakes.Not bad in protein ice cream either. I keep thinking I want to make crispy Oreo-like cookies with it…..just haven’t gotten around to it.

I am pretty sure this recipe will work with other types of sweetener, I personally have been liking the mix of half Splenda, half erythritol (a sugar alcohol derived from fruit), which gives less of an aftertaste than using all one or the other. You can use sugar, xylitol, or more Splenda instead of the erythritol if you like. All should work fine.

When doing the nutrition analysis I got a bit curious about the erythritol, because it says 0 calories per tsp, but I wasn’t sure if that was a true value or a rounded-down number. (Baking Splenda, for example, has 96 calories per cup, not zero. This is mostly from the maltodextrin bulking agent, but the small serving size listed on the label (1 tsp) has zero of course. I wanted to really know about the erythritol so I could be accurate. Okay, and for my own curiosity. And after wasting investing half a morning researching the metabolism of erythritol (what, that doesn’t happen to you?) I can say with certainty that the package is correct. Turns out that erythritol is absorbed but not metabolized, and excreted unchanged via the kidney. Cool huh? So the actual bioavailable energy is pretty much zero calories. And it doesn’t have the side effects of other polyols. Cool sweetener to play with if you’re trying to avoid sugars.

Devil’s Food Cake

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup coconut flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup Splenda granulated

1/4 cup erythritol

1/4 cup dutch cocoa powder

2 tablespoons Black Onyx cocoa powder (or more dutch cocoa)

1/2 cup water

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or oil the inside of an 8×8″ or 9×9″ cake pan.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda, Splenda, erythritol and both types of cocoa. Stir with a wire whisk to break up any lumps.

3. In a second bowl, stir together water, eggs and vanilla. Pour into bowl with dry ingredients and stir to mix. Spread in the pan and smooth with a spatula. Bake 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cut into 3 x 3 slices.

Serves 9

Chocolate Frosting

2 and 1/2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate (2.5 ounces)

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1/4 cup Splenda

1/4 cup erythritol

1 tsp vanilla

1. Combine chocolate and almond milk in a small saucepan and heat over medium temperature to melt chocolate. Stir frequently. Add Splenda and erythritol and keep stirring. When mixture comes to a boil, turn off heat and add vanilla extract. Allow to cool and thicken, then spread over cake and refrigerate. (Optional: You can serve the frosting still warm, spooned over cake.)

Per piece (including frosting): 162 calories, 12 grams total fat, 10 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams fiber, 6 grams protein