Recipe - Chocolate Squash Cake

 

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Today I am sharing another one of my favourite healthier cakes; chocolate and butternut squash cake. It is adapted from the 84th and 3rd Blog chocolate cake recipe

I love this cake and have been making regularly for various occasions over the last year or so. I sometimes decorate it with cocoa powder and for my son's Birthday recently, I added some little diggers to it! I also added grated chocolate and cacao nibs for the 'mud'. The whole family loved it!

You can find the recipe below and also here is a PDF version of the recipe in case you prefer to print it out and add it to your recipe binder!

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INGREDIENTS

Cake

• 390g finely grated raw butternut squash or roasted butternut squash
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 3/4 cup coconut oil (softened)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp bi-carb soda
• 3/4 tsp flakey sea salt
• Just over 1 cup cacao powder
• 1/3 cup coconut flour

Frosting

• 1 tub of coconut yoghurt
• 5 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp cacao powder

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease two 8 inch (20 cm) baking tins and line base with baking paper.

3. Optional: cut the butternut squash in half and roast for approx 45 mins. Scoop out the flesh (minus skin and seeds) and let it cool down

2. Whisk raw grated (or roasted if you are using that instead) pumpkin, eggs, syrup, oil and vanilla with a hand held whisk. Sift over dry ingredients and mix well. Scrape into two prepared tins and smooth surface flat with an offset/pallet knife.

3. Bake 35 – 40 mins, until edges pull away from the tin and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool cake in tin 10 mins, run a knife around edge and turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

4. While the cake is cooking, use an electric whisk to beat the coconut yoghurt for several minutes. Then add in maple syrup and cacao powder.

5. Once the cakes have cooled, spread the frosting over top of each one and leave in fridge (individually stored) for several hours. After this, assemble one on top of the other and then decorate the top as you wish.