Mexican Chocolate Birthday Cake

Ingredients

• 3 cups Paleo Orange Buttercream Frosting, or your favorite frosting.
Cake Wet Ingredients:
• 6 large eggs at room temperature
• 1 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 large low-sugar apple (200 grams), cored and coarsely cut in chunks
• About 2 1/4 cups sweetener, such as Just Like Sugar Table Top natural chicory root sweetener, or your favorite dry sweetener. (I like to use half Just Like Sugar Brown chicory root sweetener in this recipe.)
• Meat of 1 1/2 avocados (about 200 grams)
• 1 cup coconut butter if soft, or 226 grams if hard. (To soften, place the container in a bowl of warm water)
Cake Dry Ingredients:
• 1 cup almond almond meal or flour
• 1/3 cup arrowroot flour or tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup pure unsweetened cacao (or cocoa) powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Mt. Hagen organic decaffeinated coffee crystals, optional
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon unprocessed salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional and beware it is hot! (If you're nightshade intolerant, skip this.)
Fresh Raspberry Sauce:
• 2 6-oz packages fresh raspberries, or the equivalent frozen.
• 2 tablespoons sweetener to taste such as Just Like Sugar Table Top natural chicory root sweetener, or 1/2 teaspoon PureLo Lo Han Sweetener by Swanson, or 2 tablespoons raw honey, or your favorite sweetener.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 1/2 oranges, finely grated
• Pulp of one orange, peeled, sliced, and seeded
• 2 -3 very thin slices of red beet for color (optional)

Instructions

1. Prepare 3 cups of frosting. My favorite is Paleo Orange Buttercream Frosting.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. If you’re making a 3 layer cake, get out 3 cake pans 8-inch size. Trace around them and cut parchment paper to cover the bottoms - this makes removal a snap.
3. In a food processor add the eggs, vanilla, vinegar, apple, and sweetener. Mix well. Add avocados and coconut butter. Mix again until very smooth.
4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: almond meal, arrowroot, cacao, coffee, soda, salt, and spices.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Stir briefly and put batter evenly into 3 cake pans, working quickly, as the leavening is now active.
6. Bake 27 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out pretty clean. Cover and chill the cake layers in the pans, so they'll be easy to remove, and firm in assembly.
Fresh Raspberry Sauce:
7. Set aside 15 -20 whole raspberries for garnish. Place the remaining sauce ingredients into a blender. Blend well until completely liquefied and sweeten to taste. A superblender (VitaMix or BlendTec) is great as it can grind the orange and liquefy raspberry seeds. However a regular blender will work just fine. If you don't like berry seeds in your sauce, after blending strain them through a mesh colander.
Assemble:
8. Place a layer of chocolate cake on a large serving plate. Spread 1/4 of the frosting evenly over the top. Pour 1/4 of the raspberry sauce on top and spread evenly. Repeat with the other 2 cake layers. The top layer of the cake uses more icing. Drizzle raspberry sauce in a decorative pattern so it drips down the sides. Garnish with whole raspberries. ¡Ay, caramba!