I don’t remember where I found this recipe for paleo chocolate cake, but for some reason, despite the fact that I wholly dislike chocolate, I spent $15 on bittersweet chocolate at Old World Market to make this cake.  I’d also like to note that I had no bananas and had to purchase those as well.  So, I did NOT make this with overripe bananas. Just regular ripe bananas.

To be honest, I don’t even know how “paleo” this cake is. While it is mostly banana and butter (paleo? jury seems to be out), it also has 70% bittersweet chocolate. Given, the recipe called for 81%, but I’m pretty sure both types have regular old non-fructose sugar in them.  So, I don’t know. I may have to do it with 100% baking chocolate next time and find some other way to add sweetness without failing at texture.

The cake came out OK. A little soppy straight out of the oven – the primary ingredients were butter and banana – but OK.  I dumped it out of the pan too soon and I’d like you to now know that it was very crumbly (no strong gluten strands to hold the damned thing together!)

Eating it the next day for breakfast (what? I usually have a banana…a banana covered in butter, cinnamon and chocolate can’t be much worse, right?  RIGHT?), it was much better – the texture of a good chocolate truffle, I think.  Not like I eat all that many truffles (see above on generally disliking chocolate), but I think the texture is almost spot-on. Best to let the butter harden before eating. There is literally a stick of butter in this thing.

This may be evidence that paleo is not really made for baking. Or baking is not made for paleo. One of those is right. Either way, I got a chance to try the East Rutherford School District cast-off Home Ec double-boiler I’ve had since 2004 (it works so well!) and learned how to cream butter (I’m sure this is a much more satisfying task when one is using actual sugar).

Make this cake and impress your paleo friends! Your non-paleo friends…that might be another story.