And so we have left San Francisco. What a great time we have had in this city. Everyone has been friendly to us and we have found ourselves having long conversations with complete strangers on the streets and in food stores numerous times (which never happens in Sweden). We have constantly been eating good food and we even met a couple of new friends. And when we thought that the city couldn’t be sunnier or happier, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in Baseball. Such a perfect ending.
Now we have rented a car and started driving down south. Highway 1 is beyond beautiful and we have made our first stop is Santa Cruz, but we’ll tell you more about that in our next post.
Before we left, we made this chocolate cake filled and topped with blackberries. Actually it’s not very difficult to make a normal chocolate cake, you can probably find 5 zillion good recipes on google and at least 70 on Martha Stewart. But our cake is made without eggs, butter, sugar and flour, which made everything a little bit more challenging. We tried three different versions of this cake before finding the right balance between fruit vs chocolate, sticky vs dry and sweet vs dark and rich.
In the end it feels like we nailed it. This cake is sticky on the inside, has got a quite fruity taste and a rich chocolate spread. It’s gluten free and it’s vegan. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s healthy, but it is definitely more nutritious than your regular Martha Stewart cake.
Chocolate & Blackberry Fudge Cake
1 1/2 cup raw walnuts
15 fresh soft medjool-like dates, pitted
5 tbsp cacao powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp coconut oil (room temperature) or olive oil
4 tbsp apple sauce (unsweetened)
2 cups / 200 g blackberries (save half for decoration)
Chocolate & Avocado Frosting
150 g dark chocolate (dairy free or regular)
1/2 avocado
1 tbsp maple-, agave syrup or liquid honey
a pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 325° F / 175° C. Place walnuts in a food processor and until crunchy flour, add dates and pulse until mixed. Then add the rest of the ingredients and pulse everything until well combine, you might have to scrape down the sides with a spoon a couple of times. Add the blackberries and only pulse a few times (you want the berries in pieces but not completely dissolved). Pour the mixture into an 8-inch non-stick spring pan and bake it for 40 – 50 minutes.
Let the cake cool slightly before removing the spring pan. Meanwhile prepare the frosting. Melt the chocolate and pour into a blender and mix with the rest of the ingredients until smooth. Spread the frosting on top of the cooled chocolate cake and decorate with blackberries. Serve.
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