Chocolate Cake

I can't tell you how happy I am finally to have found a wheat-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and soy-free chocolate cake recipe that turns out well. Last year for Sabrina's birthday I tried a couple of chocolate cake recipes, but they were both too crumbly. I tried a boxed cake mix, but it was just okay. This cake, however, has exactly the texture and consistency that a cake should have. It's moist, and it has a great chocolate flavor. Because of the chocolate chips sprinkled on top of the cake, you don't even need to add a frosting. The only thing I would change the next time I make the cake is that I might use more than 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, since, in my opinion, the more chocolate the better.

This cake has a little secret to it, though, one that I hesitate to mention because it might put you off from trying the cake. However, since I want to share the recipe, I have to tell you the secret ingredient. It's beets. This cake contains a can of beets. I made the cake last night for our church small group, and I felt a little bit bad that I didn't tell anyone about the cake's secret ingredient. But I didn't want to prejudice them against the cake before they tried it because, once it is cooked and has cooled, you would never be able to tell that it contains beets. They are just the special ingredient that turns a wheat-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and soy-free cake into a great chocolate cake.

Here is the chocolate beet cake recipe, which makes a 9"x13" cake. Since I don't have many occasions when I need to make that much cake, I scaled the recipe down to make an 8"x8" cake. Below is my modified ingredient list, and you can refer to the original recipe for the instructions.

Chocolate Beet Cake
makes an 8"x8" cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. sea salt
• 1 small 8-ounce can of cooked, unsalted beets. Drain the beets, but reserve the liquid.
  
• 1/2 cup and 2 Tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup juice from the can of beets
• 1 and 1/2 large eggs. For the 1/2 egg, I whisked the egg in a measuring cup. My large egg was about 1/4 cup of liquid, so I used half of that, 2 Tbsp., for the cake.
• 1/2 tsp. Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another one that does not contain corn syrup.
• 2 ounces (2 squares) of unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips. Trader Joe's semi-sweet chocolate chips and Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are the two brands I have found that do not contain any milkfat.