Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake

When I was surfing about looking for sponge-like recipes for my trifle idea (still not tested, by the way) I came across this recipe for a Coconut Flour Orange Cake that reminded me of a cake Mum used to make. It was a Madeira cake that had orange juice drizzled over the top after baking, making it very moist. The topping was Cadbury dairy milk chocolate melted with a little butter. So I got nostalgic all over again, and had to give it a go.

For my trial, I made just a half recipe and baked it in a mini loaf tin. I made a couple of extra changes:

• melted the oil in a bowl that sat in another bowl with hot water in it, which meant it didn't get too hot and I could add it to the beaten egg mix, before the flour
• reduced the honey a little more, and used just 2 Tbs for the half mix
• replaced the baking powder with baking soda
• made a chocolate topping for it

I was toying with the idea of making the coconut oil topping shown, and just adding cocoa powder instead of orange zest. But I chose to make it even easier. I got some of Reilly's chocolate hazelnut spread, put it in a bowl inside another bowl of hot water, stirred it till was soft enough to spread, and voila!

Ok, so this isn't strictly GAPS, as chocolate and baking soda are illegal. But as an occasional treat, it will probably be tolerated fine by most GAPsters.

Back in May, Baden did an informal survey on her blog which showed that out of a group of 21 who had tried pure cocoa, 19 had no reaction, 1 wasn't sure and 1 had a reaction. If you think you react to cocoa, stick to the original coconut oil frosting.

Baking soda is allowed on the SCD, but not recommended for GAPS, as NCM believes most GAPsters have low stomach acid and this will worsen it. Many GAPS baked goods are fine with the soda missed out. But for the occasional cake, I don't believe a small amount of baking soda will be an issue. See Baden's comments on her blog.