This gluten free Double Chocolate Orange Torte will make a nice treat for Passover, which is rapidly approaching! My family, however, needed no holiday or excuse to devour the entire cake on a Sunday afternoon. This treat is easy to make and even easier to eat. Go ahead, try some and see for yourself.
Double Chocolate Orange Torte
Ingredients
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- ¼ cup cacao powder
- ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 3 large eggs
- ½ cup agave nectar or honey
- ½ cup grapeseed oil or palm shortening
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Place ½ cup chocolate chips in a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground to the texture of gravel
- Pulse in almond flour, cacao powder and salt and process until well combined, about 10 seconds
- Add eggs to food processor and pulse again, then add in agave, grapeseed oil and orange zest
- Pulse all ingredients together until smooth
- Remove "bowl" from food processor and stir in second ½ cup of chocolate chips using a spoon or spatula
- Transfer batter into a well oiled 8 inch springform pan
- Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
I adapted this torte recipe from a site called Mandelininc.com which has yummy ideas for almond flour goodies. The recipe I based mine on is called Chocolate Citrus Almond Torte.
Finally, I just wanted to share some disturbing information that I garnered from an article in this Sunday’s New York Times. Nicholas D. Kristof wrote a very informative piece on the use of antibiotics in factory farming. According to his article we, “need to curb the way modern agribusiness madly overuses antibiotics, leaving them ineffective for sick humans.”
Did you know that 70% of the antibiotics used in this country are administered to healthy farm animals. Why is this done? It helps the animals grow faster and bulk up, making them, of course, more valuable. Meat is sold by the pound –think quantity, not quality.
The danger of this practice? With antibiotics so prevalent, new “super bugs” are developing that are resistant to all existing anti-biotics. According to Kristof, more than 18,000 people are dying each year from these new strains of disease that are now untreatable with even the most powerful antibiotics. Pretty scary to think that after close to a century of antibiotic use we could slip back into a world where bacterial diseases (such as tuberculosis) are untreatable and ravage our population on a large scale as they once did.
What can we do? First, if you can avoid all animal products from CAFO farms (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). These types of farms crowd animals into unsanitary conditions, creating infection and of course increasing the need for the administration of prophylactic antibiotics. If you can, purchase organic meats/eggs/dairy from a farmer/rancher in your area (grass fed meat is actually best, however, that’s another story altogether).
And for all you vegans out there –kudos for not supporting the animal product industry in any way, however, these antibiotic resistant infections are contagious to everyone. They originate in a farm and can mutate to our bodies in many ways, not just by eating meat.
I am hardly an expert on this issue, nor do I claim to be. So please, those of you that have more information, leave a comment and let’s figure out what else we can do to change this frightening trend.
Elena Rego says
This post made me positively giddy! I cannot wait to make this. Before I discovered my gluten intolerance, I would indulge in an orange chocolate torte at my favorite restaurant. Since finding out about me and gluten :) I’ve had to stop, but ohhhhh… God… everytime I go to the restaurant, my heart breaks a little. And now! woohoo! Thanks for this.
Laura says
Just got your cookbook, but I think I have to make this before trying one of those recipes! I am craving chocolate and this is just perfectly simple. I will just pretend the antioxidants weigh out the overall lack of health factor with this dessert…and enjoy :) Looks very gooey and delightful.
Thanks again! I look forward to sharing your book and website with future clients and class attendees!
–
Laura
Jelly says
Hey Elana,
I’ve been blessed by your website as I walk the tough road of the candida diet. I am able to adapt many of your recipes to my restrictions as well as make up some new versions (such as peanut butter and carob power bars, and carrot cake power bars). I came today and saw this torte (tough on the cravings lol…guess that’s my fault for looking!) and was wondering if you have much experience with carob? I have used it for the topping in the power bars in place of chocolate and it works great, but a whole torte…I just don’t know. Seeing as I can’t have any fruit but a small handful of berries a day, there’s no way to add a banana or anything to…well…make it tastier. Any ideas for how to adapt these kinds of recipes to carob? Thanks, and your recipes are much appreciated! I am looking forward to some new passover recipes as we will be celebrating it soon!
Yahweh bless
Jelly
Becca says
Looks delicious. I will have to try this. Do you (or anyone else) ever substitute butter or coconut oil for the grapeseed oil in these recipes?
Alta says
This sounds SO easy, and looks so good. Definitely need to add this one to the “must make” list. Looks like one of those desserts you make when you have company. It’ll wow them with little effort on the part of the cook!
Emilia says
Ah, I just came up with a recipe for chocloate orange biscotti that i will post on my site soon. The combo of Chocolate and orange is a big hit! I will definitely try this double choc torte.
Thanks Elana!
Eve says
Hm.
For some reason, the website I cited for finding grass-fed, kosher slaughtered meat did not come through. Let me try again:
mitzvahmeat@gmail.com
Eve says
This sounds scrumptious; I’ll have to try it out on this weekend’s visitors before Pesach…
Candie says
One of the reasons that farmers give the antibiotics is because cows are feed grain/corn, which is undigestable and not their natural diet. It is said that w/o antibiotics a cow will die within a very short time on the diet that they receive. So in order to keep them ‘healthy’ farmers give them antibiotics. This is one of the reasons why eating grass fed beef is healthier. Another health reason for consuming grass fed beef is that it has a high amount of Omega-3 fatty acid, which is the healthy fat that you also find in salmon.
Linda says
Respectfully I must add some bits and pieces of what I remember from school, and working in the industry, seems like a lifetime ago. It’s also a practice I disagree with. Antibiotic usage, I don’t believe has much to do with digestibility. Feeds are designed from roughages (grasses) and concentrates (grains), and put together with targeted nutrient amounts to be contained in the total feed the animal eats.
My take, the demand of the public for more meat as a finished product brought about the need to raise animals faster. I agree that grass fed gets many additional nutrients naturally, but I imagine if that is all they are fed, it will take longer to get to market weight. That’s where the concentrated grains come in to give more protein, fat, fiber… to the animal versus grasses only in a shorter amount of time. Needing to grow animals quicker, also would increase the number of animals raised on that land. Here’s where you run into problems in the cleanliness factor of keeping things tidy in a crowded area. That’s where I see the antibiotics factor in. Not great upkeep will take it’s toll on immune systems, and more tendency for animals to get sick. If they have the low levels constantly, kind of a ‘preventative’ way to keep the animals ‘well’ in their stay at the facility. I know small farms that keep things clean, and have no need/ desire for medicated feeds. I imagine the same is true for larger places that have the land and ability to keep up their farms.
The ‘factory farms’, look at bottom line and turn around time. I think it’s a big difference between stewards of the land and it just being business.
It was just my take in what I was around. Hopefully it’s helpful and gives a wider view/ understanding.
Rita says
I raise beef cattle and we creep feed the calves corn and oats. We are self sufficient growing our own corn, oats, and hay, so I know there are no chemicals introduced in the herd. We have raised cattle (closed herd) for over 25 years and have not had to use any antibiotics. As mentioned if you provide clean pastures that are not over crowded and have a closed herd there should not be a need to medicate. What is more seriuos, is what the FDA is allowing livestock industry to add to feed prior to slaughtering (NO WITHDRAWAL PERIOD). Mercola.com has some inlightning newsletters – a must read March 6, 2010, Ractopamine
is banned in 160 countries – including China – but is FDA approved for beef, pork, and poulrty in the USA!
Dena says
Scary info about the antibiotics. I use them sparingly and always thought that was protection so that when I really need them, my body will respond to them, but that may not be good enough, I see.
I’ll start looking for a source of grass-fed meat. I used to buy a whole grass-fed lamb from a farmer in Ireland and that was the best meat I’d had in ages. BUT, we had to give it away when we started keeping Kosher because it wasn’t shechted properly. How do you work around that in the US? Anyone know?
I am such a fan of acupuncture and Chinese medicine that I strongly recommend these to be your “go-to” in the event you have something that’s resisting antibiotics or other Western medicine. My daughter fully recovered from the mumps in 5 DAYS with Chinese meds — without them, she would have been sick for 5 WEEKS!
Eve says
Re ethically raised, organically fed compassionately kosher-slaughtered meat: check out
Maya Shetrit, who has been working on this for some years, is doing really good things. Meat should be available by summer. (She does ship frozen meat, overnight, with dry ice; it is expensive.)
If you are on the East Coast, check out Elat Chayyim and the Adamah program at the Isabella Freedman Center in Connecticut. There is a group of young people who are learning organic farming, and one of the aspects is raising goats. Some male goats are shechted; I don’t know if they would sell any of the meat.
Rachel says
For kosher/grassfed, check out Kol Foods–www.kolfoods.com. My husband and I have ordered from them and we have been thrilled with everything.