Baking, Cakes, Chocolate, Dairy Free, Desserts, Easter, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Naturally Sweetened, Nuts, Paleo, Raw, Sauces, Snacks, Thermomix, Vegan, Vegetarian, Wholefood
Gooey Chocolate Icing (dairy free, sugar free, vegan)
Here we are, a couple of days into our (mostly) grain free, sugar free, dairy free challenge, and I realize I’m going to have to make a birthday cake for my youngest that will not make her want to live permanently at Grandma’s house! What to do? She had asked for a plain chocolate cake, which I quickly agreed to a few days ago, thinking I’d just whiz up our favourite, quick chocolate cake in the Thermomix (Cyndi O’Meara’s Chocolate Cake from her “Changing Habits, Changing Lives Cookbook”, made with spelt flour and rice-almond milk). Sigh. Couldn’t do that, has grains in it. I thought about making the Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies in a cake tin, but I didn’t have any hazelnuts. I couldn’t make the Flourless Chocolate Espresso Cake because it has lots of chocolate in it – too much sugar. Torte Caprese? No, way too much sugar! Hmmm… So I decided to make a chocolate cake based on my Flourless Pecan Cake recipe instead.
I had some leftover ground almonds, so I chucked them in, added some pecans and started grinding them up… then realized I didn’t have any coconut cream! And so a new recipe was born. It has some pretty cool changes – a couple of surprise ingredients which help to cut down the Rapadura to 40g, and keep it moist and rich. I’ll share the recipe soon, as I’m still tweaking it, because I want to be sure it’s ‘just right’ before I post it for you all to try! (You never can have too many chocolate cake recipes, right?)
Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to say was after making this grain free chocolate cake, I decided it really would be better with some icing. And surely my eight year old wouldn’t argue if I put some icing on her ‘plain chocolate cake’? I’d been meaning to work out another dairy free, sugar free icing that didn’t involve margerine (ick, one of my pet hates!) or chocolate pieces (because you don’t always have chocolate on hand, especially if you have a husband like mine who steals it and leaves the empty packet in the fridge so you don’t realize!)… and anyway, I couldn’t use chocolate unless it was my healthy homemade one, because we’re avoiding sugar. So, with some internet research and a bit of imaginative tweaking, I came up with this simple, delicious recipe! Hope you like it as much as we did. (Yep, it’s all gone. At least it will be when I get back into the kitchen.
Makes enough icing for one 20cm round cake (spread thickly!)
Note: You can find vanilla powder and Dutch cocoa powder for this recipe in my online store!
- 100g raw cashews
- 3 fresh pitted dates
- 20g raw cacao powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 20g pure maple syrup
- 20g filtered water
- Grind cashews for 10 seconds, speed 9, until fine.
- Add remaining ingredients and mix at speed 6 for 30 seconds, scrape down, add a little more water if needed, and mix another 30 seconds until smooth.
Spread the icing thickly on your cake and enjoy, guilt free!!
* Next time I’ll try soaking the cashews for half an hour first, then grind up all the ingredients at once. This might make a smoother icing. I was too impatient to try it this time!
I just made this to ice my gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free cake. It is SO GOOD! Tastes exactly like the sugary buttery stuff. Thanks for this, I’m loving it 🙂
Glad you liked it!!
Do you think this would work on watermelon? I’m thinking of covering watermelon in it for a birthday cake 🙂
Not sure, it may not stick, you would have to try it.
Can this be made Nut free at all?
Could you tell us the recipe of the cake you made? It sounds delicious
Can you substitute cashews with almonds?
Hi Sophia! Yes, you could use blanched almonds…it may not be quite as creamy though. 🙂
Has anyone tried swapping the cashews for avocado?
Hi, just wondering if anyone had made this without the cacaoa? As in a sugar free vanilla frosting? Bubs first birthday coming up…
Hi Tara. I think it will turn out just fine without the cacao.I would probably use a tad more vanilla to turn it into vanilla creamy icing;-). Good luck