Paleo Almond Flour Chocolate Cake

Rich, chocolatey, moist and spongey, this almond flour cake is bound to impress! You’ll never guess it’s paleo, grain free, or refined sugar free when you take your first bite.

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If you know me, you’ll know I always, always choose vanilla over chocolate (especially vanilla funfetti). But ohmygosh I am in actual love with this almond flour cake! It’s moist, fluffy, spongey and everything a chocolate cake should be but without any of the refined sugar, grains or oil you usually get. Just simple ingredients, fluffy layers and a rich paleo buttercream. It’s perfect. I am biased, I know, but it’s perfect!

Since you definitely don’t want to use almond flour in place of cake flour or all purpose flour in a recipe, you need to find a recipe that already uses almond flour as the base, like this one!

Before we get into the nitty gritty, please make sure you are using almond flour from blanched almonds and NOT almond meal from whole ground almonds. They are different and will yield different results!

Almond flour is light and reacts well with the eggs and baking soda, giving this cake a beautiful rise and fluffy texture. Almond meal will prevent the cake from rising and can yield a very dense texture.

How to make this recipe

Line 3 round 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and set aside. It’s easiest to lightly grease the sides and bottoms, then cut out round pieces of parchment and place them in each pan so they stick easily. You can also use 2 9 inch round pans, but see notes for adjustments in baking time etc.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. Be sure to shake the can of coconut milk before opening so that the creamy white part is well combined with the more watery part. You need 1 1/2 cups total, which is just shy of 1 can. Reserve the rest for the frosting!

In a second bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. Be sure to spoon and level all flours, do not scoop right from the bag!

Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and whisk well until a batter forms.

Transfer to the prepared pans and fill each as evenly as possible. If you have a kitchen scale you can use it to get accurate measurements. Otherwise, just eyeball it!

Bake for 30-38 minutes. My oven was exactly 35 minutes, but all ovens are different. Check with a toothpick for doneness. If using 2 nine inch pans, bake time will be around 35-42 minutes, but check with a toothpick.

Once done, remove from the oven, and let cool in the pans for about 15 minutes or until easy to handle.

Once cool enough, flip over onto a cooling rack, they should slide right out, but if not, just lightly tap the bottom.

Let cool completely before frosting. A little bit of internal heat will cause the frosting to melt, so be sure they are completely cool. You can stick them in the fridge if you need to speed things up.

While cooling, make the buttercream by beating together the palm shortening or butter with the coconut milk until creamy. Beat in the sifted sugar, sifted cocoa and all remaining ingredients until your desired consistency is reached. If it’s too thin, add more sugar, if it’s too thick add some regular non-dairy milk.

Once the cake is cool, frost between each layer and then frost the outside. Enjoy!

Different Pan Sizes

I made this cake into a 3 layer 8 inch round cake. However, you can definitely make this into a two layer 9 inch round cake. You only want to fill a cake pan about 2/3 of the way up, which leaves room for rising. Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction explains cake pan adjustments really well, but here’s a summary for this recipe!

An 8 inch round pan holds about 6 cups of batter, so 18 cups for 3 pans. A 9 inch round pan holds about 8 cups of batter, so 16 cups for 2 pans. This recipe makes about 9 cups of batter, so the 8 inch pans are filled halfway, which about 3 cups in each. If making this into a 2 layer 9 inch round cake, your pans will be filled a little more than halfway, with about 4 1/2 cups each.

This means slightly thicker layers and a slightly longer baking time, but it’s very easy to use different pans than what I used! Make sense? Don’t worry, baking times will be explained in the recipe card itself so you’re not lost!

OR, if you want to cut this recipe in half, you can just halve it, then bake it in ONE 9 inch round cake pan. Easy!

Storage tips

Once prepared, this almond flour chocolate cake will store for about 3-5 days. Be sure to keep it covered so it does not dry out. To help it keep fresh for longer, you can store it in the fridge, but I generally keep it at room temperature. Up to you!

Pro Tips

Use room temperature ingredients. Room temperature eggs will prevent the coconut milk from hardening in the batter. You can run your eggs until warm water if they’ve come straight out of the fridge. Otherwise, let them sit at room temperature for about an hour.

Spoon & level to measure the flour. You’re probably sick of me saying this if you come here often, but please do not scoop the flour right from the bag! You will end up with too much flour accidentally. Spoon the flour into your dry measuring cups, then level off the top with a knife.

Use regular cocoa powder, not dutch-processed. Regular cocoa powder is slightly acidic which reacts with the baking soda to create a nice fluffy texture. Dutch processed cocoa can result in a flat cake.

Can I use a different sweetener? This almond flour cake uses both coconut sugar and honey to help sweeten and moisten the sponge. I do not recommend swapping the coconut sugar for a liquid sweetener, but you are welcome to swap it for another granulated sugar. Using too much liquid sweetener would result in a dense cake, which we don’t want! For best results, stick to the recipe as is!

You’ll also love…

• Paleo Brownies
• Almond Flour Blondies
• Coconut Flour Pancakes

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