Want something very rich and chocolatey? This chocolate cake is a flavour explosion in your mouth. Bittersweet chocolate, spicy pear, and smooth date caramel. Delicious!
This dairy-free and flourless cake made with olive oil and the almond meal will surely impress your foodie friends. I like to use vegetable oil in cakes much more than butter. Vegetable oil makes the cake moist and rich. Usually, I use grapeseed oil or olive oil. Chocolate and olive oil is surprisingly great combination make an ultra-moist cake. Make sure you use best quality chocolate and olive oil.
I’m not a sweet tooth, this cake is moderate in sugar. You also will not find refined sugar in this recipe, I use coconut sugar, dates and chocolate chips with stevia.
Ingredients
Cake (18x11cm loaf pan):
- 3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I use 100 g stevia choc chips)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup coconut sugar
- 1 1/4 cup almond meal
- 3 eggs, divided
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Poached Pears:
- 3 firm Packham pears or Bosc pears, peeled
- 4 cups water
- 5 cardamom pods
- 2 anise stars
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
Date caramel:
- 1 cup Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
- Chopped roasted hazelnuts to garnish.
Directions
- Poached pear. Place 4 cups cold water, vanilla, spices and sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add peeled pears. Cook, partially covered, turning occasionally until pears are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Allow pears to cool in syrup, turning occasionally. Using a slotted spoon, transfer pears to a plate. Reserve the syrup and set aside.
- Date caramel. Soak the dates in reserved (warm) syrup for about 15 minutes. Transfer the soaked dates, and some syrup into high-speed blender (I use Vitamix). Add vanilla paste. Blend until very smooth.
- Cake. Pre-heat the oven up to 180С (350F). Grease a 18x11cm loaf pan and line with nonstick baking paper.
- In the mixing bowl combine the olive oil, coconut sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Stir well to combine. Add almond meal and cardamom. Mix the batter.
- In a double boiler set over simmering water, melt the chocolate. Once the chocolate is melted, chill it slightly (it shouldn’t be hot), then add it to the batter and mix to combine.
- In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites with salt until stiff peaks form. Drop a generous scoop of whipped egg whites into the batter. Stir it gently until the batter looks lumpy and barely combined. This helps to lighten the base and make it easier to work in the egg whites without deflating them. Add the rest of the egg whites to the batter. With the blade of your spatula, slice straight down through the middle of the egg whites until you hit the bottom of the bowl. Scrape your spatula along the curve of the bowl, gently scooping up the batter and egg whites. Fold them over on top of the remaining egg whites. Repeat this folding motion until the batter has been completely incorporated into the egg whites.
- Pour 1/2 cup of batter into prepared pan. Arrange the poached pears in the center of the pan. Pour over remaining batter.
- Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
- Allow to cool before serving. Drizzle with date caramel, sprinkle with chopped nuts. Enjoy!
