The Best Chocolate Cake Ever...That Just Happens to Be Vegan and Gluten Free

I know what you're thinking. The cake pictured above cannot be good for you. And there's certainly no way it tastes good if it's vegan and gluten free to boot. It simple cannot. Admittedly, that's what I feared too. Fortunately, I thought very, very wrong. This practically healthy, fiber-rich cake from baking godsend, Vegan Divas even got my dessert-averse boyfriend and sugar-tooth lacking father sneaking seconds. Since I served the cake at a gathering to celebrate Robert Burns, known as Burns Supper, celebrating his January 25th (1759, folks) birthday, I adorned it with some crafty candles (dork alert). Fair warning: The decadent, dark chocolate-y smell of the fragrant cake might transform your guests into a must-eat-cake coma, so delay serving at your own risk.

Ingredients

6 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate, broken into pieces

1 1/2 cups organic coconut milk or vanilla soy milk, gently heated

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla

1 14-oz can organic pumpkin puree

1 1/4 cup organic golden brown sugar

1/2 cup GF almond flour 

2 tablespoons tapioca or potato starch

1 tablespoon dry Ener-G Egg Replacer

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon or ginger

Instructions:

Place the chocolate pieces in the Vita-Mix (or a high speed blender container); add the heated hemp milk. Cover tightly- use caution with hot liquids. Turn on the mixer to high. Blend until chocolate pieces are melted. Add the vanilla extract, and pumpkin puree. Cover. Blend a minute.

Add the brown sugar, almond flour, tapioca, egg replacer, xanthan gum, sea salt, baking powder, cinnamon or ginger. Cover. Blend on high for a minute. Turn it off (unplug it for safety if you have kids nearby). Open the top and using a plastic spatula scrape down the sides if any flour is sticking to the sides- if you're using a food processor instead, do the same. Cover. Plug back in.

Blend for another minute or two until the batter is creamy and smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan (valentine's tin can) ; scrape all the batter out with a smallish silicone spatula. Smooth the top evenly.

Bake in the center of the oven until the cake is firm- anywhere from 50 to 60 minutes. Check the cake sooner if your experience indicates that flourless cakes and pies bake up quicker than 50 minutes; also, if your experience is that these types of recipes bake longer- check at 50 to 55 minutes; and follow your instincts. The center will be the last to cook- it shouldn't be wiggly.

Cool the cake on a wire rack. The top will collapse a bit- no worries. When the cake has cooled, cover and chill it at least two hours before serving. The longer the better. 

Chilling creates a dense fudgy cake.

Serve with chocolate sauce, a few ripe berries, a dusting of confectioner's sugar, or a few fresh mint leaves.

Don't think you can pull it off yourself? Fear not! Order the delectable cake here for Valentine's Day, along with a wide variety of other Vegan Divas' pastries and goodies.

Serves 8 to 10. (Or in my case, devoured by six with a side of So Delicious Dairy Free Almond Milk Ice Cream which I don't think any of my guests would have been able to guess it was vegan, too)

Whoops, got the candles wrong...

Ah, there we go. Much better.