A SWEET & HEALTHY TREAT. . . you can feel good about

This cake is proof that you do not need to trade healthy ingredient choices for appealing taste and appearance in baked goods. You can have it all and eat your cake too!

The cake is from coffeeandquinoa.com and the icing recipe adapted from Alissa Segersten and Tom Malterre’s cookbook Nourishing Meals, Chocolate Avocado Frosting. Alissa and Tom have the best tasting icing recipes and the rest of their cookbook is packed with healthy gluten-free recipes for the entire family.

NOTE: You will need to double the recipe for this two -layer chocolate cake.

Cake Ingredients

• 2 medium beets (buy already cooked beets and avoid the work of roasting from raw)
• 2 C almond milk (or milk of your choice)
• 1 T cream of tartar
• 1 1/2 C raw turbindo sugar (sugar cane-based, minimally refined sugar)
• 1/2 C melted coconut oil
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 C oat flour
• 3/4 C almond meal
• 1 C unsweetened cocoa powder (I use cacao powder.)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

Cake Preparation Steps

Prepare Beets

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Scrub beets and chop off stems. Wrap in aluminum foil.
3. Roast until fork slides easily into center of the beet, approximately 60-75 minutes.
4. Remove, unwrap, and set aside to cool.
5. Slide skins off beets and cut into chunks.
6. Puree in food processor. (You will be using 1 C puree for the cake.)

For the Cake

1. Lower oven temp to 350 degrees.
2. Coat 2 8-inch. round pans with coconut oil and line the bottoms only with parchment paper. Cover the paper with coconut oil.
3. Whisk together the milk and cream of tartar and let stand about 5 minutes.
4. Add the beet puree, sugar, coconut oil and vanilla extract to the milk mixture. Beat until foamy (about 30 seconds).
5. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients and beat again until fully incorporated.
6. Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudge like crumbs, approximately 30-35 minutes.
7. Remove and cool completely. (NOTE: I place the cooled pans into the freezer and let freeze overnight. The cake is easier to frost when frozen.)

Icing Ingredients

• 3 small ripe avocados, about 1 C mashed
• 6-8 T honey or maple syrup
• 6-8 T cocoa powder (I use cacao powder)
• 1 T vanilla
• 1-2 tsp almond flavoring
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Icing Preparation Steps

1.  Place all ingredients into a food processor fitted with the “s” blade. Process until very smooth.

NOTE:  Pull the cake rounds out of the freezer and immediately frost with the icing.  We store the cake in the fridge.