Gluten free chocolate cake made with coconut flour and brown rice flour. Naturally sweetened for a low glycemic, sugar-free, healthy cake!
^ ^ ^Look at it! Doesn’t this just kill you softly?
There is something called bliss and it lives inside this cake.
There’s so much about this cake that you need to know. There’s so much about this cake that you need to eat.
Way back when I posted my Chocolate Beet Cake, a French woman left a comment saying she baked the cake and loved it, but she used less coconut sugar than the recipe called for because in France, they prefer their cakes less sweet than we do here in ‘merica. Little alarm bells went off in my noggin when I read her comment because I also prefer my sweets less sweet. Sweet, but not…sweet.
Because figs are wonderful to use as natural sweeteners, I added no sugar at all to this recipe and let the figs be the only source of sweetness. The cake came out marvelously – the French would LOVE it.
It’s rich, you get the little fig seeds so it’s like you’re eating a fig newton cake (which I love) and it’s far from too sweet. For those who will be serving this cake to guests, I would suggest adding some form of sugar (coconut sugar, date sugar or agave would keep it natural) because not everyone will enjoy a non-sweet cake.
I know. You’re rolling your eyes and looking at me like, “Julia, that cake is raw.” And it’s not. I promise, it’s not! It’s just stupid moist and delicious. And pudding-y!
This recipe includes coconut flour
and brown rice flour
, which results in a dense, rich cake. If you prefer fluffier cakes and feel like experimenting, you can use 4 eggs instead of 2 and cut back on the coconut milk. The nature of the coconut flour beast is it requires more eggs than regular flour in order to get it to a fluffy consistency.
This is your get-out-of-scrambled-eggs-free pass. Seriously. Eat it for breakfast.
Gluten Free Chocolate Fig Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 ripe figs halved and roasted
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup avocado oil*
- 1 cup full-fat canned coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- ½ cup coconut flour
- 1/2 cup brown rice flour
- ½ cup raw cacao powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Cut the figs in half, place them cut-side up on a baking sheet and roast them for 15 to 20 minutes, until they’re soft and juices are running out.
- Remove figs from the oven and allow them to cool (to speed up this process, put them in a bowl and stick them in the freezer/refrigerator just until they’re lukewarm or cold).
- Add the figs and the coconut milk to a blender and blend until smooth.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the blended figs/milks with the eggs, oil and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.
- Add the flours, cacao powder, baking powder and salt to the wet mixture and stir just until combined.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Pour the cake batter into a well-oiled 8” cake pan.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until cake tests clean.
Notes
Nutrition
More gluten free chocolate cake recipes:
Chocolate, Chestnut and Amaretti Cake from Cannelle et Vanille
Celebration Fudge Cake – Vegan, Heart Healthy, and Gluten Free from Eat Healthy
Donna Hay’s Melt-and-Mix Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake from Bake for Happy Kids
Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake from Sweetly Raw
Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake from Pine Cone Camp
Hello, what would be the weight of the figs ? I saw in a comment your figs were very large, but I don’t know how my figs qualify and I know that the “official” average weight for fruits and vegetables tends to be higher in the US than here in France. Also a weight for the roasted fig would help to know if I’m not evaporating too much water from them, but that’s a lot to ask (although figs are in season now 😉 ). Thank you 🙂
This was delicious. I used plump dried figs (probably double the quantity) and topped it with a dark chocolate/coconut milk ganach.
This looks wonderful! There’s lots of figs around at my local markets now, so I have been wanting to make a fig cake for a while and two friends have birthdays coming up…
How much almond milk is needed? I couldn’t seem to find the amount.
Any substitutions for coconut milk or the two flours? Another type of milk or regular flour, perhaps? I’m not 100% sure I can find them at my grocery store.
Thank you! Cake looks great! I’ve already put up a ton of fig preserves, so I’m ready to use figs for some baking now. : )
Hi Debbie, my apologies for the confusion on the almond milk – I had updated the ingredient list, but not the instructions. The recipe only calls for coconut milk. With that said, you could replace the coconut milk with regular whole milk (perhaps even buttermilk, though I can’t be sure). There is no good replacement for coconut flour, as it really works completely differently from all other flours. oat flour can be substituted for rice flour. If you’re looking to bake a cake using regular all-purpose flour, I would recommend using a completely different recipe, as you would need to adjust the liquid to accommodate the flour substitution. Hope this helps!
Hi Julia! I’m excited to try this recipe this weekend. Do you think it will work with dried figs? Or do you feel it’s important to use only fresh figs? Thanks in advance for your input!
Hi Shirin! I’m so happy you’re interested in making the cake! Since fresh figs have so much juice to them, I wouldn’t recommend using dried figs, as it will change the moisture content of the cake. If you’re up for experimenting with the portion of liquid in order to get the cake to the right fudgey/cakey consistency, I’d say go for it! I’d just blend the figs up into the batter nice and well. As an alternative, you could try the recipe using fresh dates, but again, you’d need to adjust the amount of liquid you add. Hope this helps and let me know if it turns out!
Hi Julia,
Just discovered your site and have spent the weekend trying your recipes. Loved the Coconut Sweet Potato cookies and Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal!
I have a fig tree and a bunch of figs I needed to use up so I tried this recipe. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out 🙁 I tried the batter and it wasn’t just not sweet, it was salty. Is 1/2 tsp salt right? I ended up adding 4 Tbs maple syrup to the mixture and it still turned out salty. The texture was lovely and once we added cream it was edible but not amazing… any ideas? Was the almond milk supposed to be sweetened?
Thanks, Amy
Hi Amy, I’m so glad you liked the sweet potato cookies and oatmeal, and am sorry the fig cake didn’t turn out! As I mentioned in the post, the recipe was not meant to be very sweet. When I made the cake, it was rich with a creamy texture with the fig seeds studded throughout, which I enjoyed but I can definitely see how it’s not for everyone. The figs I used were large and very ripe – was this the case for your figs? The almond milk I used was unsweetened. In order to sweeten up the recipe, you could add cane sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar, or sweetener of choice. I would avoid using too much maple syrup or agave, since the syrup will change the consistency of the cake. Definitely let me know if you try making it again, and what adjustments you make! Thanks so much for the feedback! 🙂