Monday, December 17, 2012

Grain Free, Gluten Free Spicy Dark Chocolate Gingerbread Cake



This cake is not playing around peeps.  This is some serious spicy ass cake.  If you are not into bold flavors, have a weak palate, or don't enjoy getting a little freaky with your ingredients from time to time, then move on!  This cake is cray cray.

I wanted a deep, dark chocolate cake, but I also wanted a super spicy gingerbread.  Every gingerbread recipe I've made thus far has not been nearly spicy enough.  Every recipe calls for like, a measly 2 tsp of ground ginger.  Sorry, that is not going to cut it!  Certainly not when you've also got 100% dark chocolate to contend with.  If you are an adventurous eater and enjoy teasing your palate, try this crazy cake.

Grain Free Gluten Free Spicy Dark Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp instant coffee
5 eggs, room temp
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
1/4 cup butter
1 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 tbsp milk of choice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup neutral liquid sweetener of choice

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a large mixing bowl, using a fork or whisk to break up lumps.  In a separate, microwave safe bowl, microwave your unsweetened chocolate, butter, and milk of choice, until chocolate is melted.  Stir in instant coffee. Let cool and then mix with your room temp eggs, molasses, vanilla extract, and additional quarter cup of sweetener.  Add wet to dry and incorporate.  I fully encourage tasting of the batter at this point.  Add more spices if desired and stir well.  Pour into parchment lined and greased 8x8 pan and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Start testing at 15 minutes because you do not want to overbake.  When a toothpick comes out almost clean, remove from oven.

If you like, frost with a quick chocolate glaze.  All I did was melt a bar of 90% dark chocolate with some coconut oil, and whipped for a minute or so until thickened.

A note about the pumpkin pie spice- it's a really great spice mix to have around as it already has all the spices necessary for gingerbread- cloves, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice.  It's a wonderful shortcut.  Using it in this recipe allows me to get the right flavor combo, but then bump up the ginger and cinnamon as desired, without the whole recipe getting overpoweringly clove-y or nutmeg-y or allspice-y.

Regarding the additional sweetener, a SF sweetener will work of course, as will many other liquid sweeteners.  A mild honey, coconut nectar, date syrup, brown rice syrup, probably even maple.  If you use stevia powder or drops, you'll need to add enough liquid to cover the 1/4 cup called for.

This would make a fantastic Christmas dessert, and if you don't want to make frosting, a sprinkling of powdered sugar would be great.  I have seen a  zillion recipes for sugar free powdered sugar, most just calling for pulverized xylitol or erythritol in the high powered blender or food processor.


6 comments:

  1. This looks so yum! I have got to get some molasses and try this out - maybe for Christmas dessert. I think a little whipped cream would be perfect. Woe to me if I ever go dairy free. LOL Thanks for sharing!!

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  2. Yay Kim I am so thrilled it worked for you! that is so exciting! thank you so much for commenting! this recipe was a little out there so its so fun to find out you liked it!!

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  3. Made this yesterday - so good! The only change I made was that I added 1T xylitol instead of the liquid sweetener, because I don't do/have any. I left the spices the way you wrote it, but I can see that maybe extra ginger may have been super yummy. I didn't put anything on top, but maybe today I'll pulverize some 'sugar'.

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  4. HI Im goig to make this today for a dinner party this evening. Im concerned about 8x8 pan, how many will this feed? Could I put into a bundt cake pan or will it come out too thin?

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  5. Hi Karen! If you want to do a bundt I would definitely double or triple the recipe. I would say the 8x8 would feed 8 people, if they are having moderately sized pieces. But for a dinner party, a pretty bundt would be much nicer looking. The baking time will be totally different though! I say go for it, a bundt is sooooo much more festive looking! Just err on the side of underbaking! A dry cake is awful!

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