Chocolate & Ginger Cake (Portugal)
Every week, I post a sweet or savoury, healthy recipe to welcome in the weekend.
This Healthy & Sweet Recipe
This is the final of the Fit Four Portugal recipes. It also happens to coincide with Sweet Hour! I've definitely left the best for last with this one. During my trip to Portugal, we stopped at a random family restaurant in Lagos and ordered the homemade dessert, Chocolate & Ginger cake, on a whim - not expecting much. Ten, maybe twenty, seconds later that entire thing was devoured...it was incredible! We went back the next day to have it again and it was equally as good. My mission became clear - replicate that cake!
Of course, this was the naughtiest of naughty cakes, so my recipe leaves out all the bad bits. I hope you enjoy it enough for seconds as well!
Makes 6 - 8 pieces depending on size of pieces cut
Ingredients
DRY INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup (120g) almond flour
- 1 cup (120g) cacao powder
- 1/2 cup (60g) coconut flour
- 1 small handful of cacao nibs
- 1 small spoon bicarbonate soda
- Pinch or two of salt
Wet Ingredients
- 2 big spoonfuls of chopped ginger
- 6 dates pittted
- 1 cup (240ml) coconut milk
- 4 eggs
- 2 tbsp (30g) organic, unsalted butter
- 1 big spoonful of coconut oil melted
Steps
Begin by pre-heating oven to 170C/325F. Then prep your baking tin; use a paper towel and coconut oil to grease it well.
Next, combine your "dry ingredients" in a large glass bowl. Set aside.
Separately, mix "wet ingredients" in a food processor until thoroughly blended.
Now, slowly pour wet mixture into dry mixture, mixing well as you go. (I know it's a whole lot of mixing but it's just the best word here.)
Transfer resulting batter into cake tin. Don't worry if it looks spongier than most cake batters - it will do. Use the rounded side of a spoon to smooth out surface.
Bake cake for about 25 to 30 minutes. A fork or toothpick should come out cleanly from the middle. After baking, leave to cool for at least 10 minutes so that cake becomes firmer.
Top with chopped nuts, extra cacao nibs and ginger to make this look like a real masterpiece!
