Cake!

Warning: This cake is neither low sugar nor low fat. It is not a health food bar. It IS cake! It is gluten-free, soy-free, vegan cake! Can you tell I'm excited, yet? Maybe I could add a few more exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!

Thanksgiving is coming and I've been thinking about my menu. First things first...dessert! I decided since I've had so many other dietary changes in the last couple years, I was going to have a REAL dessert for Thanksgiving. Not just one that was good to me, but one my family would want to eat too. Here is my first experiment with cake. I found a recipe by Jodie on theppk.com and went to converting it into something I could eat. First I made the chocolate chips (a double batch) that I wrote about earlier this week. While these were freezing I made the cake. Any vegan chocolate chips would be ok, but many of them still have soy. If I were to use store bought chips, I'd use the Enjoy Life brand, because they are vegan and have no soy or vanilla.

I'm a recovering diabetic* and don't use much "real" sugar, so to me it was ultra sweet (my mom and dad said it wasn't too sweet), but oh so yummy.

Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups grated, peeled, fresh zucchini
2 ripe bananas, mashed well
1 cup safflower oil
2/3 cup garfava flour
1/3 cup sorghum flour
1 cup arrowroot
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup almond meal
1 Tbsp guar gum
2 cups turbinado sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 double batch of chocolate chips (or 1 cup vegan chocolate chips)


Directions
In medium sized mixing bowl, combine zucchini, bananas, and oil. Stir well or beat with electric mixer. I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment In large bowl, combine all remaining ingredients except chocolate. Add wet mixture to dry, mix well and add chocolate chips. Pour into lightly greased and floured (I used cocoa) bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes, until toothpick or knife inserted comes out clean. Let cool upright 15 minutes, then invert onto cooling rack. Allow to cool 30 minutes

It was actually a little bit too moist this time although it was done. (Toothpick was almost clean - but the cake was browned just right and it was shrinking away from the sides of the pan) I think it was because I used the coconut oil chocolate chips instead of store-bought. I think next time, I'm going to cut back on the regular oil a little and see how it goes. If I change it and it works better, I'll post the change. But if you use store bought chocolate chips, I would think the recipe above would be just right. Note to self: Your blog is not a good enough excuse to make cake again before Thanksgiving.

Melanie, you said y'all would test for me in Sunday School. You were talking about pizza, but I hope cake is ok. I'll be bringing it tomorrow.

Update: Sunday 11-11-07 I'm not going to change the recipe, today after it had fully cooled, the cakes was less dough-y. And the people that tried it said not to change a thing. I even had one friend who is an awesome baker ask for the recipe so she could make it for a celiac at work. So yay! I have my Thanksgiving dessert.

*I call myself a recovering diabetic because nearly 10 years after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I no longer take diabetes drugs and don't use insulin. Although all of my readings aren't perfect yet, my bloodwork at through the lab is showing just barely above normal and my doctor no longer feels the need to code my insurance as diabetic. She calls me carbohydrate sensitive. If I ever get myself back to exercising regularly and can lose some more weight, hopefully I'll be normal (well, my glucose levels would be normal).