Chocolate Chia Orange Cake

This was an ad lib cake made with Liam yesterday to celebrate the summer solstice and it being Father’s Day. It started with a search for a recipe online using tahini and chocolate. We started roughly with a tahini chocolate brownie recipe, but since I feel like I need a lot of protein these days, we added some chia seeds. The mixture still didn’t taste quite punchy or satisfying enough so we added orange zest for a lift in zing and almonds for some nutty texture (and more protein). Recipe still a work in progress but we really enjoyed this cake. It’s all eaten now, 24 hours later! 

Ingredients:

1 cup tahini

1/2 cup raw cane sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 tbsp coconut oil (melted)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup cacao powder

1 tbsp flour 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tbsp chia seeds

2 tbsp water

Zest of an orange

1/2 cup of almonds (roughly chopped)

1/2 cup chocolate chips/chopped up chocolate 

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 20cm round pie dish with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, add tahini, sugar, maple syrup, coconut oil, egg and vanilla extract. Slowly fold in the flour (we actually used sourdough starter here instead), cacao powder, orange zest, chia seeds, salt and baking soda until batter is smooth. Gradually add the water (may need more/less - looking for a batter like consistency). Finally fold in the almonds and chocolate chips. 

Pour mixture into the dish. Bake for 20 mins. Check to see if cake is done by inserting a knife into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s ready. Aiming for a nice moist, fudgy, brownie-like texture in the middle.       

Serving suggestion: we ate this with fresh strawberries and kefir and it all worked well together - fresh, zingy, tart and chocolatey rich.