Chocolate Bunnies and Eggs

Happy Easter!!

My contribution to Easter dinner this year was a dessert. But I didn't want it to be just any dessert. I wanted our family to see that "cooking with weird ingredients" didn't mean having to sacrifice in the taste department. And that it could still follow a theme. And that it could mean eating chocolate! (I still can't believe I found chocolate that fits all our restrictions -- and just a week before Easter. Thank you Enjoy Life!)

A huge thank you to Allergy Mom at The Allergic Kid for posting her recipe for "Be My Valentine" Cakes. This was my first time attempting to bake a cake without wheat, dairy or eggs and I must say I found the task quite daunting. It took literally hours to make, but was worth every minute of effort. And I learned so much that I could probably whip these up without too much fuss the second time around. Part of the lengthy time was due to reinspecting labels on all the products I had never used before. I also used a coconut spread that needed to be "warmed" first -- and this took 45 minutes. Next time I will get that going even before preheating the oven.

So, lessons learned and confidence gained for future baking projects. But did I mention the taste? OMG!! This was probably the best chocolate dessert I've ever eaten! Now I may be a little biased after not tasting chocolate for a year, but these cakes were way beyond my expectations and our family wholeheartedly gave them a glowing review.

Here are the substitutions I made to the cake batter to make these work for our allergies:

• 1 1/4 cup wheat flour => 3/4 cup brown rice flour and 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• I added 1 Tbsp Ener-G egg replacer mixed with 4 Tbsp water
• 1/2 cup canola oil => just under 1/2 cup safflower oil to accommodate the added "egg"
• 1/2 cup soy yogurt => 1/2 cup Wilderness Family Naturals Coconut Spread

I didn't make the filling due to lack of time and they were still delicious without it. I made the ganache as listed in the original recipe.

These cakes reminded me of chocolate lava cake, which I will try making at some point using this recipe. I picture putting batter in a ramekin, then the ganache (or maybe even just the chocolate chips), then more batter. Mmmmm.