Getting on the low carb train but worry that chocolate cake won’t get on? Chocolate lived before any of the diets were born and will live long after them!

Chocolate cakes are wide and vary. It’s ingrained in our being, like it was air that we breath. No human being who has any affection towards pastries can deny such pleasures as a chocolate cake.

Yet chocolate cakes weren’t always part of national prides across the world. Partly because cocoa beans weren’t introduced to the world until the Spanish conquered the Americas and brought back a bit of it.

It fell flat on the stomach of common people but not so on the court. People of high birth started to favor the drink partly probably because it was mixed into milk with honey and sometimes vanilla.

It didn’t take long -by medieval standards- until other nations caught scent of the cocoa and it spread across Europe. The fact that the Pope declared it consumable during lent, probably helped greatly though.

The new craze stirred up the slave market and soon plenty of Africans become Americans to replace the dying Americans that couldn’t cope with increased labor requirements and European virus types.

When the industrial revolution cast its eye on the cocoa market, things sped up and improved greatly.

The Dutch soon figured out how to reduce the cocoa natural bitterness and fat content. This Dutch cocoa was made moldable by the English, called Joseph Fray whose name is still borned by chocolates in England. Thanks to Nestle’s milk powder Swiss soon improved upon Frays technique and invented milk chocolate.

When Lindt arrived at the party, he didn’t have much to do only placing the cherry on top or rather scraping it off as conching that is crucial part of chocolate production is.

Soon after perfecting the production process, chocolate was added not only as filling or glaze but as an ingredient with the batter as well. Chocolate cakes as we know of today were born.

Since then plenty of cocoa has been added to cakes in many forms, resulting in different textures and flavors. The best thing about cocoa that it could dodge all the food trends of the ages thanks to its unique properties.

It’s naturally gluten free, dairy free, sugar free and fat is removed during the processing. Only if we were able to live on cocoa alone but unfortunately munching on dry powder isn’t much fun.

Luckily, we can substitute all the additional ingredients that we used to make chocolate cake with something else that suits our actual diet. That’s why no matter where we go in life, we always have a chocolate cake with us, be it simply sugar free chocolate cake, gluten free chocolate cake or as it is now a low carb keto chocolate cake.

This recipe won’t have all sort of bells and whistles or rather filling and frostings. It’s just the base that will provide a perfect fluffy starting point for all the creaminess that we plan to build in the future.

Creating the structure egg whites were beaten then mixed with almond flour resulting in a fluffy sponge cake that in texture closely resembles a simple sponge cake only it won’t dry out as quickly as the oil in almond flour will prevent that.

Other nuts or seeds also can be used as in reality almond doesn’t have role in creating the cake structure due the lack of gluten. Mind that coconut flour can be substituted with almond flour, but additional liquid and eggs will be needed due to the coconut greater moisture absorption properties. A good starting point is to substitute 1 cup of almond flour with 1/4 cup (1 ounce) of coconut flour. 1 egg will also be needed to be added for every 1/4 cup of coconut flour used in addition to the eggs called for in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

7 oz / 200g Almond (ground)
6 large Eggs (separated)
1 teaspoon Baking powder (follow instructions on packaging)
1 tablespoon Stevia or sweetener of choice
2 tablespoon Cocoa powder (unsweetened)

How to make Keto chocolate cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C.
Prepare tray with parchment paper.
Grind almond if not in flour form.
Mix ground almond, cocoa powder and baking powder.
Separate eggs and put egg whites in the mixing bowl.
Keep yolks in a cup for later.
Beat egg whites until peaks form.
Add yolks into the egg whites one by one whilst keep beating it.
Mix in the sweetener, baking powder and the almond flour.
Don’t forget the cocoa powder otherwise it won’t be chocolate cake at all.
Pour batter on the prepared tray and put it in the oven for about 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
When it is baked, leave it on a rack to cool down.

Enjoy!

Be it keto, gluten or dairy free, there is a sponge cake for everyone:

Star this recipe!