By Linnet Good
This moist, rich cake is the perfect meld of strawberries, fresh walnuts
and chocolate. You can easily make it gluten free by substituting flours as noted.
Ingredients
1 cup freshly cracked walnuts
1 cup plain white flour (for gluten free use 3/4 cup buckwheat flour plus 1/4 cup tapioca flour)
1/2 cup good quality cocoa
1 teasp baking powder
pinch sea salt
1 cup mixed frozen berries
50 g butter or coconut oil, melted
4 tablesp honey
4 pastured eggs
3/4 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
plus fresh strawberries to decorate
1 tablesp balsamic vinegar
Chocolate Ganache
100 ml cream (cow’s or coconut)
100 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
Method
Preheat oven to 170°C. Generously grease and flour a 22 cm round cake tin.
Blend the walnuts with 1/4 cup of flour in a food processor until the nuts are finely
ground. Tip into a bowl and add remaining flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt, stirring
to combine.
Mash the thawed berries in a separate bowl with the butter or coconut oil and honey
until smooth. Whisk in the eggs one at a time. Stir through chopped strawberries and
balsamic vinegar. Tip this mixture onto the flour and fold through.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer
comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cake rack. Cool cake completely before icing.
To make the chocolate ganache, put the cream and chocolate into the top of a double boiler above simmering water and stir until melted and smooth.
Cut the cake in half horizontally. Place a thin layer of ganache and then a layer of sliced
strawberries on the lower half, then replace the other half on top.
Spoon ganache over the top of the cake, allowing it to run down the sides. Decorate the
top with fresh strawberries while the ganache is still soft.
Serve and eat!