Food blog seven - moist, rich chocolate cake

Last week I tried a chocolate cake recipe using buckwheat flour and butter. As I hadn’t ever made chocolate cake before it was something of an experiment. Today I found another recipe, using olive oil, an ingredient I always find works splendidly in a moist carrot cake. The resulting chocolate cake was excellent. I substituted the flour and sugar with gluten-free and sweetener. I believe the lighter flour and olive oil in hot water made for a lightly textured, well-risen rich chocolate cake.

Ingredients for Moist Chocolate Cake

If baked using buckwheat flour and sweetener this is gluten-free and sugar-free.

1 cup flour - 7/8 cup if using buckwheat. Dove’s gluten-free SR flour is cup for cup and light.

1 cup sugar, powdered - 1/3 cup if using truvia
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp coffee powder (to bring out flavour)

1/2 cup oil-I use cold-pressed virgin olive oil

1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup cold milk or buttermilk (Greek yogurt diluted by a third)

1 tbsp vanilla essence
1 egg (whisk for 1 minute)

It really is worth using olive oil in water, for moisture, and coffee to enhance the chocolate flavour.

1 Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees C - 160C fan. Grease and line an 8-inch baking tin.

2 In a bowl sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and coffee powder.

3 In a second bowl whisk together 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup hot water till well blended. Let it cool. 

4 When cool add the milk or buttermilk ( or Greek yogurt watered down) and vanilla essence. Mix in the food processor. 

5 Add the whisked egg.

Pour the wet ingredients gradually into the dry ingredients and beat them together. I finish the whole off in the food processor. 

6 Pour it in a greased tin.

Bake it for 35-40 minutes at 180 degrees C or 160C fan till an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

You can double the ingredients and sandwich both halves together with a chocolate frosting. See last week’s blog for details. This is my second chocolate cake and I much prefer it. When I bake a carrot cake I used cold-pressed (non-blended) olive oil and the result is always moist. 

In the image the lighter, drier chocolate cake was made with butter and buckwheat flour. The darker moist cake was made with olive oil in hot water added to Dove’s gluten-free flour.

The moist cake wins hands down.