7  Paleo Chocolate Cake

Cake dry ingredients
3 cups almond flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 cups coconut sugar
1 1/2 cups raw cacao powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp espresso powder
1 tsp salt

Cake wet ingredients
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate frosting
8 cups organic powdered sugar (or powdered coconut sugar, powdered succanat, etc)
1 cup raw cacao powder
1 cup organic palm shortening (or vegan butter or a combination of both)
1/2-3/4 cup almond milk, cashew milk or coconut milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions, cake
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
1. Grease three 8-inch cake pans (see notes below) and line the bottom with parchment paper. Coconut oil can leave a slight coconut taste, so greasing with ghee or organic palm shortening can avoid that. Set these aside.
1. Add all of the dry ingredients to a very large mixing bowl and whisk together.
1. Add all of the wet ingredients to a separate medium mixing bowl and whisk together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together for 1-2 minutes to create your cake batter.
1. Evenly divide the batter between the baking pans and cook for 28-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
1. Once the cake has completely cooled, assemble the cake by adding the chocolate buttercream frosting between each layer and frosting the outside.

Directions, frosting
1. Add all ingredients to a stand mixer and blend on low for 30 seconds. Once the ingredients have started to combine, slowly increase the speed to high and blend for one minute.
1. To thin the consistency (if needed) add more milk, or to thicken add more powdered sugar.

7.1 Notes

Adopted from Downshiftology - Amazing Paleo Chocolate Cake
If you don’t want a coconut flavor, use refined coconut oil which is odorless and flavorless.
Baking time of 28-30 minutes is based on a standard oven. I’d recommend checking the cakes earlier, at 23-24 minutes if your oven tends to cook fast or if you’re using a convection oven.
You can also use two 9-inch cake pans for a two-layer cake (the layers will be thicker) instead of three 8-inch pans. Bake them for approximately 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. It also works very well with two 9.5-inch cake pans. Bake them for apporximately 30 minutes.
For at better incorporated frosting, mix the vegan butter with the powdered sugar first until well combined, and butter has softenend a bit, before adding the remaining ingredients.
Make sure your cake is 100% cool before frosting. Even the slightest amount of internal heat in the layers will cause the frosting to melt.