Cakes …Chocolate Cakes, Tortes, Sponges, Glorious Celebrations Cakes – definitely not paleo, not sugar free, not for everyday eating but when the occasion calls for a cake, you gotta make it a good one!

These are all my recent cakes but the one I’m posting is a really simple gluten free chocolate cake I made for Dominic’s birthday and it was really good. Cover it in chocolate Ganache and it will disappear. If you do what I did and cut the middle out, fill with sweets and marshmallows for a surprise Pinata cake then the kids will fall over with excitement. Try it and see…

Gluten Free Chocolate Ganache Cake
Serves 8-10

4oz butter
5oz regular caster or coconut palm sugar
2 eggs beaten
6oz (gluten free) plain flour
2oz ground almonds
1oz cocoa
1/2 tsp bread soda
Pinch salt
5fl oz of milk, butter milk or 2.5fl oz each of natural yoghurt and cream

Oven at 180C
Line the base of a 9″ springform tin with parchment paper
Grease the sides of the tin
Cream the butter and sugar together
Beat the eggs in gradually
Mix together the flour, almond flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda,
Beat (Alternately)in the liquid and dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar mix
Pour into the tin and bake for about 35 – 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean
Cool a little then remove from the tin and cool completely on a cooling rack.

Chocolate Ganache – Add 1 tsp of ground espresso coffee to the final ganache if you want to make it adult only – it really lifts the taste of the chocolate
6oz good quality (53% – 65% )chocolate chopped finely
6fl oz cream

Heat the cream to just under boiling
Pour over the chocolate and stir briskly until it has melted and is lovely and thick and shiny
Stir in the coffee if using
Place in the fridge to cool until it has thickened a little – it needs to be pourable to stay on the cake
If you are making a pinata cake then use a saucer as a guide to cut the centre out of the cake.
Cut the centre piece in half HORIZONTALLY
Place your cake on cake plate
(Slide some parchment paper under the edges to allow you to keep the plate clean while you ganache it)
Fill the hole with sweets of choice
Place 1 cut half of the centre back on top of the sweets and press down gently.
Pour most of the Ganache over the cake and using a spatula gently spread it over hte top and down the sides.
Spread the rest around the side of the cake and decorate as you like, kids love buttons smarties and marshmallows.
Keep in a cool place to set before serving.(Not the fridge, this cake is much nicer at room temperature)