Sweet Sundays: Amy Green ~ One of my favorite desserts to make for company is a chocolate torte.  It’s one of those quick and simple dishes that’s elegant enough to serve anytime. 

Most chocolate tortes are made with lots of butter.  That won’t fly if you or someone you loves has to eat dairy-free. There’s also the healthier factor that makes this torte one of my favorites.  Instead of using fat, unsweetened applesauce stands in and keeps it moist so you can use the back of your fork to get every last crumb off of your plate.

The other great thing about this torte is that it’s gluten-free and doesn’t need any unfamiliar flours.  You can pick up all the ingredients at your local grocery store.  And, yes, 100% unsweetened chocolate is totally dairy-free.  The ingredients will read: “100% cocoa.” If you can’t have refined sugar, I’ve included a recipe for ‘sugar-free powdered sugar.’  It uses a small amount of eythritol, a sugar-replacement ...

Have fun with this recipe. I don’t know what I enjoy more – watching people enjoy this dairy-free torte or knowing that the dessert is healthier without anyone ever suspecting it.

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar

Torte:

• 2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can low-sodium garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup palm / coconut sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid vanilla stevia

Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar & Design:

• 3 tablespoons unsweetened, shredded coconut
• 2 tablespoons eythritol
• 1 (8-inch) paper doiley

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Lightly coat a 9-inch spring form pan with cooking spray.

Put the applesauce and chocolate into a small bowl.  Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until chocolate is melted. Set aside.
Place the garbanzo beans and eggs in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade.  Pulse several times to combine then process until smooth. Scrape down bowl and add melted chocolate and applesauce, sift cocoa powder into the bowl, add palm sugar, espresso powder, and stevia.  Pulse several times, then process until smooth scraping bowl several times to make sure everything’s mixed well.
Turn batter into prepared pan. Set pan on a baking sheet and bake for 18 – 22 minutes just until the center is set.  Be careful not to over bake or the edges will be dry.  Run a thin, offset spatula between the cake and the pan then let cool for 15 minutes in the pan.  Remove the outer rim and then let cool competely.

For the Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar:

Put the coconut and erythritol in a coffee or spice grinder.  Grind until powdery.  Don’t over grind or you’ll have a paste.  Once cake is cool, center doiley on cake.  Use a fine mesh strainer to sprinkle powdered sugar over the cake.  Carefully remove the doiley.  Slice and serve.

serves 8

Amy Green, M.Ed., authors Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free, a popular food blog about eating well, eliminating refined sugars and wheat, and maintaining a healthy weight.   She has been living free from white sugar and wheat since 2004 and, as a result, is maintaining a 60+ pound weight loss.  Over the years she’s learned that eating healthier doesn’t equal deprivation.   

  Amy’s first cookbook, Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free: 180 Recipes You Can Make in 20 Minutes or Less, was released in February 2011 and is available on  Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.