Honey Almond Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

A gluten free, flour-less, and dairy free chocolate cake made with olive oil, honey, and almonds meal. This moist chocolate cake uses simple pantry ingredients and tastes exceptionally moist and decadent. 

I paired this cake with crunchy Honey Roasted Blue Diamond Almonds and fresh raspberries for pleasant contrast of texture and taste.

I love serving simple cakes for holiday and family gatherings which can be assembled and baked in very less time. Often, some of my guests are on gluten free or dairy free diet. So my desserts are such which everyone can enjoy. I love the fact that this saves me from spending double time on dessert. :)

Plus what's better than a dessert which comes with promise of no gluten, no dairy, natural sweetness of honey and yet moist chocolate taste?! Who will say no to that?! Ask me, I'm even in for a second serving and for the record... so are my guests! 

I'm huge fan of Blue Diamond Almond's quality and unique flavors. Recently, when Blue Diamond sent me few samples of their lite sweet and delicious Honey Roasted Almonds.... I just could not stop munching them.  The sweet honey roasted crunchy almonds are perfect lite snack and even make delicious addition to any holiday party platter. For my holiday get-togethers, I love serving a bowl of lite salted roasted Blue Diamond Almonds and Honey Roasted Almonds for some sweet and salty healthy holiday munching. 

I have been thinking to bake a gluten free Almond Cake to serve for a holiday family get together. Honey Roasted Almond just fit perfectly in the theme. Idea was a moist yet rich cake but dairy free and gluten free. Inspired for sweetness of natural honey in almonds, I also decided to skip refined sugar and use honey for the cake recipe which made the cake even more moist.

Almond meal soaks the moisture from honey, and olive oil giving this cake moist almost a milk-fudge like texture. Paired with fresh raspberries and crunchy almonds for some texture and extra sweetness..... this cake turned out to be favorite of even no-diet restriction guests too!!

This cake recipe has been adapted from Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Olive Cake. I'm huge fan of her gluten free baking. Here is the link to recipe for Clementine Almond Cake I shared before. Often my gluten free cakes are inspired from her recipes and this one is no different. However, other than being gluten free, this cake is also dairy free and has no sugar. So this cake, even though inspired yet is different from her Chocolate Olive Cake. 

I also served some fresh whipped cream on the side. For blog, I have not included the whipped cream since I wanted to keep the cake dairy-free. Feel free to serve some cream on the side if you prefer. Or If you want to serve it dairy-free, a little bit whipped coconut cream also works perfect. Or stewed cherries will also make a great pairing. 

Oh, and any leftovers of this cake are perfect for tea-time snacking. Cake stays good for 2-3 days. In fact texture of almond cakes are even better the next day. In short, this chocolate cake is perfect to  bake a day in advance.

Merry Christmas Everyone! And Happy Holidays!!