Gluten and Casein Free Chocolate Cake

We are debuting our visual Chocolate Cake recipe this week. Providing access to a more user friendly format for non-readers has been a key intention for the Zen of Slow Cooking. In the future we hope to produce one visual recipe a month.

For me, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t eat chocolate in some form. I’ve discovered there’s a rapidly evolving movement of chocolate experts seeking out the best single origin products, just as wine enthusiasts go in search of a Grand Cru.

The Chocolate Connoiseur by Chloé Doutre-Roussel gave us a concise and beautifully presented introduction to chosing the best ingredients for our event “Sense, Slow Cook and Savor”.

For the event, we explored our senses through Feldenkrais and concentrated on brain to body connections around awareness of our hearing, sight and smell. We completed the exercise using taste with three chocolate desserts baked in our slow cooker – a chocolate fondue, raspberry white chocolate chip bread and dark chocolate pots de creme (the heavy cream version!)

In small bites, a high quality chocolate can be a good addition to our diets. For populations sensitive to casein (a protein found in dairy) this may help satisfy a craving. In addition, there are compounds in chocolate which act as neurotransmitters in the brain and have the potential to improve mood and positively impact concentration.

Here’s the fun and tasty part. Our visual recipe debut this week is a Chocolate Cake and in support of Autism Awareness Month we’ve made it gluten and casein free. Please click on the ingredients icons to see the visual learners format.

We love Taza Chocolate’s Stone Ground Bars and also Trader Joes 85% Lovers Bar, both are casein free. Taza specifically produce chocolate that contains no dairy, casein, whey, or eggs, or any ingredients containing these items.

Send us a picture of your cake and we’ll enter you in our giveaway draw for our zen of slow cooking apron and favorite slow cooking cookbook… Art of the Slow Cooker  – Andrew Schloss.

Prep Time  15 minutes              Cooking Time 2 hrs  Servings 10

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups king arthur gluten free flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup good quality dark chocolate/dairy free chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup light olive oil
3/4 cup almond milk or rice milk

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the cocoa, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder and stir well with a spoon to combine.

Next stir the sugar and chocolate pieces into the flour mixture.

In a separate bowl, crack the eggs and whisk.

Add the vanilla, olive oil and milk to the egg mixture and whisk again to combine.

Pour the egg mixture over the flour mixture and stir using a spatula to scrape the dried ingredients from the inside of the bowl.

Pour into an oiled loaf tin and put into your slow cooker on a piece of foil. Set the slow cooker to High for 2 hours 30 minutes. Insert a toothpick or fork, if it comes out clean then the cake is done. Remove the loaf pan from the slow cooker and leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before turning the cake out. Serve a slice as it is, warm, or add fresh raspberries and your favorite ice cream.

Looking Ahead
Sharing our recipe for crunchy chicken fajita nachos next week.

Zen Toolkit
For a safe way to make your own chocolate chunks, freeze the night before. Remove from the freezer, remove the wrapper and put the chocolate into a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to break into pieces.

Zen Moment
“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
― Linda Grayson