18 Mar 2013 9 Comments

Flour-less Decadent Chocolate Cake

Growing up, Pesach always meant too much matzah, stomach issues and packaged food. Dessert mainly consisted of  Manischevitz Macaroons or a brick like, dry,potato starch cake. Lets just say…I really could relate to the suffering of our ancestors! Now that I am married and have children, my thoughts about Pesach food have greatly changed. Hardly anything that comes into our house is processed, especially on Pesach. We strive to make Pesach the healthiest time of the year!  

My husband and I love to cook and we have fallen in love with coconut oil, mainly for it’s health benefits (i.e reduces inflammation, anti-microbial, softens skin). I use it as a moisturizer, conditioner, lip balm, my daughter’s diaper rash cream and body wash etc. and we love to use it in our cooking/baking. During the year (including Pesach) many people love using margarine in their cooking and baked goods because they feel it is the closest thing to butter, without the dairy. Right now I am going through my certification to be a health coach and the more I learn about margarine, the more I want to shout from the rooftops, “Stay far away from it!”. Margarine contains trans fat, which has been found to raise the risk of heart disease and has been declared by a Harvard study to be “the worst fat for the heart, the blood vessels, and rest of the body.”   Yes, butter and coconut oil have saturated fats and in the past we were made to believe that kind of fat was bad for us. Research now shows us that we were wrong in thinking that and in fact our body needs this type of fact for many reasons, one being to better absorb Vitamin A,D,E and Calcium.

Since we don’t eat butter, I was so excited when I saw from the OU that, “Spectrum unrefined coconut oil, with a plain OU symbol, is kosher of Passover (2014)”. That is right, no need to find a special “Kosher for Pesach” label! One of my favorite desserts is a decadent rich chocolate cake. This is far from a dry, dense, potato starch based cake. This simple fudge-like dessert is extremely rich and wonderful all year round, not just for Pesach. Since it is so rich, you only need to serve a small slice and it compliments a fruit salad very well!

Ingredients:

4 oz. vegan chocolate chips (plus 4-6 Tbsp. of choclate chips to melt at the end, in order to splatter on top, for garnish)

3 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2-3/4 cup honey

2 Tbsp. of orange zest (optional)

1 cup of strawberries and 1 cup of raspberries (for garnish)

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 and grease a round pan (or spring-form pan) with coconut oil. If you don’t have a spring form pan I would recommend lining a round pan with foil (sides included) and then grease it so that you can lift it right out of the pan easily.
• Melt chocolate chips and coconut butter in a double broiler or in an oven safe bowel and put it in the oven for 4-5min.
• Combine the chocolate chips/coconut butter mixture with the rest of the ingredients and wisk until completely smooth
• Pour into greased pan and smooth with a spatula
• Bake at 375 for 20-25min, until the center looks firm
• Let cake cool in pan for 15min
• Place carefully on a plate, dice up strawberries and place on top, in a circular formation. Place the raspberries in the center
• Melt 3-4 Tbsp.chocolate chips and with a fork, splatter the chocolate over the berries

 

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by in Food and Nutrition