A Super Dark Chocolate Cake

(no refined flour, no refined sugar)

Arshi Walia
Sep 2, 2018 · 4 min read

Two years back, when I was visiting my sister’s family in London, my sister and I attended a one day baking workshop at Konditor & Cook Cake School. My interest in baking was very new at the time, and I remember having a super informative and fun day at the bakery. We also went home with 6 self-baked cakes (3 each for my sister and I!!). Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to keep up with my then new found love for baking as much as I would have liked.

Last week, Google Photos sent me a ‘rediscover this day’ notification, and I was reminded of that workshop. So, I ended up baking a small batch of Konditor & Cook’s Curly Whirly cake, tweaking the recipe to make it refined flour and refined sugar free, and altering the amount of the alternate sugar used (coconut sugar) to make the cake just sweet enough for us.

The substitutions worked quite well, and I ended up with a super dark, not so sweet chocolate cake :)

Baked the cake twice in a week, and decided that this recipe needs to be saved.


What did I use:

For the dark chocolate sponge:

  • 55 g whole wheat flour
  • 55 g oat flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 15 g cocoa powder
  • 125 ml milk
  • 90 g coconut sugar
  • 50 g dark chocolate chips (I used 80% dark)
  • 50 g salted butter, softened
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

For the frosting:

  • 180 g cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon Bailey’s
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

To decorate:

  • Cacao nibs

How I made it:

I followed Konditor & Cook’s instructions for the Curly Whirly cake with some minor changes:

Bake the dark chocolate sponge:

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 C.
  2. Grease and line a 17cm round cake tin with foil or baking parchment.
  3. In a medium bowl, sift the whole wheat flour, oat flour, baking powder and cocoa powder together and keep aside.
  4. Heat half the milk and half the coconut sugar together in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved, then add the chocolate chips and stir over a low heat until melted. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
  5. Put the butter and the remaining coconut sugar in a bowl, and beat together until light and fluffy, using an handheld electric mixer. Gradually add the beaten egg, alternating each addition with a tablespoon of the flour mixture to prevent it from splitting.
  6. Fold in the rest of the flour, followed by the remaining milk, then add the still-warm chocolate milk. Mix until smooth (as per the original recipe, this mixture will have a very runny consistency, but for the modified ingredients, the mixture had a slightly thicker consistency)
  7. Pour the mixture in the prepared cake tin and bake for 25 minutes, until risen and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin.

Make frosting:

In a bowl, use the handheld electric mixer on a low speed and slowly beat the cream cheese, Bailey’s and vanilla extract until smooth.

Decorate:

After the cake is completely cool, take it out of the tin, and place it on the serving plate. Evenly spread the frosting on top of the cake with a palette knife. Sprinkle the cake with cacao nibs. And it’s done :)


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