Recipes

Allergy-Friendly Chocolate Cake

There's no need to deprive yourself of chocolate cake, even if you have food allergies

By Teresa Goff /

Credit: Flickr/Psycho Delia

No need to deprive yourself of chocolate cake, even if you have food allergies

Imagine a childhood without chocolate. No, I can’t either. That’s why I had to come up with some finger-licking chocolate cake alternatives for my two-year-old who has extensive allergies

While he is not exactly allergic to chocolate, everything that comes into contact with commercial chocolate has been contaminated by either nuts, dairy or wheat.

Here is our newly tested chocolate snacking cake. We eat it without icing.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups flour (I use a combination of 1 cup each soya flour, barley flour and brown rice flour but if you want to make this gluten-free, use 1 1/2 cups of brown rice flour and 1 1/2 cups of soya flour)
  • 2 cups sugar (I use 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar but you can do 2 cups of either and if you want it a little less sweet, reduce your sugar by 1/4 cup)
  • 2/3 cups cocoa
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 cups milk (I use a 400ml can of Aroy-D coconut milk, which is free from Potassium Metabisulphite – you can use any milk-substitute but the coconut milk makes it very fudgey)
  • 1 cup oil (I use regular Canola oil but again you can substitute melted margarine or coconut oil)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla (pure vanilla is best but very expensive – according to Wikipedia, artificial vanilla is a byproduct from the pulp used in papermaking in which the lignin is broken down using sulfites)
  • 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar (I have also used white vinegar and it works fine)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
  2. Grease an 8×11 pan.
  3. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl.  
  4. Mix wet ingredients, except vinegar, in large bowl.
  5. Slowly add wet to dry ingredients and mix with beaters on low speed.
  6. When all is mixed, stir in the vinegar.
  7. The consistency will be firm – not too liquidy.
  8. Pour into cake pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Wait until it cools to cut or else it will fall apart.

Read more about dealing with kids’ food allergies.

Teresa Goff is a freelance writer and broadcaster. As the mother of one very allergic boy and one very energetic boy, she has learned how to make food out of nothing at all while playing lego and doing two art projects at once.