My Baking Journey
My best childhood memories usually include the meals I ate and the people who enjoyed these meals with me. I am a foodie at heart and this stems from growing up trying new restaurants with my parents, never being scared of trying unique foods and having many family dinners at my grandma’s house.
As well as a foodie, I am a dessert lover. As a kid, I was always the first to order dessert and if I didn’t my parents would actually think something was wrong haha! I definitely inherited my dad’s sweet tooth and his love for chocolate. I later discovered my passion for baking from my grandma, who would always make a dessert for our Tuesday night family dinners. I started to help her bake and we would make anything from cakes to crumbles. It was the highlight of my week in elementary school. This is where I learned that my love of eating desserts could actually be better by baking the desserts myself and sharing them with others.
In the last few years, I noticed eating healthier made my body feel better, which in return made my mental health improve. I learned that my gut and mind are directly connected, so the food I eat impacts how I feel. Processed foods, refined sugars and carbs make me feel anxious, tired and overall stressed. I started to swap these ingredients with grain-free options like almond flour, coconut sugar and other whole food alternatives.
I knew I couldn’t give up desserts, so learning these ingredient swaps made me want to try to create my own recipes that tasted just as good as all my childhood and current favorite sweets without the ingredients that bog me down. I hope these recipes will be shared and enjoyed with all your loved ones while also nourishing your mind, body and soul.
My Favorite Chocolate Cake turned Grain-Free
Now that you have a little back story on me and my journey, I am excited to share with you my first original recipe. This cake is inspired by my grandma’s famous chocolate Kahlua cake. This cake is so rich and decadent, so recreating it with only whole foods seemed daunting. After experimenting with a few different ingredients, I found the perfect alternatives. I replaced the sour cream that creates the moist texture that I love so much in my grandma’s recipe. The trick is coconut cream! You can buy coconut cream, but I like to make it using a can of full fat coconut milk. Putting the can in the fridge overnight, allows all the cream to float the top when you open it. For this recipe, you only want to take that top thick, cream layer and then save the left over coconut milk/water for another recipe. I personally love adding it to my matcha latte the next morning, but I’ll save that recipe for another day :)
I hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you try it out!
Ingredients
Cake
1 cup Almond Flour
3/4 cup coconut flour or gluten free flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1 3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 can of full fat Coconut milk (leave in refrigerator for at least 8 hours)
1 cup dark chocolate chunks or chips
Chocolate Glaze (optional)
8 oz Dark chocolate
2-3 tbsp Peanut butter
Directions
Cake
Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease bundt pan or other cake pan of preference with coconut oil spray or grass-fed butter
Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside
Open can of coconut milk and remove cream from top of can. It will be the thick white part that has floated to the top of the can. Save the coconut water to use in other recipes (like lattes, etc)
Add the cream, eggs and milk to the dry ingredients. Mix until everything is combined
Add the chocolate chips and mix together
Pour batter into prepared ban and bake for 30-40 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean
Glaze
While cake is baking, melt chocolate and peanut butter in pan or microwave.
If using microwave, heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between
Once cake is cooled completely, pour glaze over cake
I like to use a cooling rack to elevate the cake and let the glaze drip down onto parchment paper underneath for a smooth glaze and easy clean up!
