No Joke Dark Chocolate Cake (GF)

This cake is insanely good. I made it for a special occasion last year and it blew everyone away. And no one knew it was GF and SF. SF means that it uses alternative sugars--like maple syrup. My trainer Jennifer Hardwick gave the recipe to me...it's from "zenbellycatering.com". Yep, it's a lot of work--but it's worth it!

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 C almond flour
1/2 C arrowroot powder
1/4 C coconut flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 C cocoa powder
1 C maple syrup
1/4 C coconut oil (plus more for greasing pans)
4 eggs
2 t vanilla

Chocolate Whipped Cream:

3/4 C heavy cream (or equivalent in coconut cream from the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk
1/4 C chocolate chips
1 t vanilla

Ganache Glaze:

4 T butter or coconut oil
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/4 C chocolate chips
2-4 T honey (I use 4)

Directions for Cake:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease and line 2 small spring form pans (6" or 8")
Sift dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl. In a small bowl--whisk the eggs and add the melted coconut oil maple syrup and vanilla. Stir to combine and add to the dry ingredients. Beat until well combined by hand and pour into the prepared pans. Bake rfor 25-30 minutes--depending on the size of your pans. If using larger ones check after 20 minutes.

For Chocolate Whipped Cream:

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler over simmering water. Beat your cream until it's stiff. If using coconut cream--it may not get as still but that's ok. Add the melted chocolate and give it another quick whip and scrape down the sides of the bowl so it's mixed well.

For Ganache Glaze:

Melt the bitter unsweetened chocolate and the chocolate chips in a double boiler over simmering water (use the same bowl you melted the chocolate in for the whipped cream?). Once it's melted...stir in the honey and turn off the heat. Here's where the patience and attentiveness come in: Remove the bowl from the heat and allow it to come to room temperature stirring every 5 minutes or so. You want the ganache to thicken but not get so hard that you have to spread it on the cake. You want to be able to pour it. It will probably take about 1/2 hour to get to the right consistency--a good time to do all of the dishes you just made dirty.

Pull it all together: I made a small 4-layer cake out of this recipe--but could have easily kept it simple and made it 2 layers instead. If you are going for 4 layers--cut each layer in half and arrange the bottom layer on a plate with parchment paper tucked in around the edged to keep the frosting from getting all over the plate. Plop 1/3 of the cream in the center and spread out to the edges. Repeat until you are out of layers.Stick cake in refrigerator for a while so it can harden a bit. Then spread ganache all over the cake--but if it isn't enough for the sides that's OK . Just drizzle some down the sides. Mangia!