round brown cake on a plate cut into diamond shapes with a cinnamon stick on top and a blood orange peel
Dessert

Taren's Olive Oil Chaga Cake

Olive Oil, Poppy Seed, Blood Orange & Raspberry Snack Cake with Chaga Soak!

Wondrous Chef Taren Coulter created this beautiful recipe for us - Find her website here!

Ingredients

Cake:

  • 1 cup cassava flour 
  • 1 cup almond flour 
  • 5 eggs/whites and yolks separated 
  • 1 cup coconut sugar
  • 1 cup olive oil 
  • 2 tbsp coconut milk 
  • 1 tsp vanilla 
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder 
  • 1 tbsp poppy seed 
  • 1 tsp cardamom 
  • ¾ tsp sea salt 
  • Zest from 1 blood orange
  • 3 blood oranges - peeled, pithed and quartered  
  • 1 cup raspberries

Mushroom Soak:

  • 1 cup water 
  • 1 cup cane sugar
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 blood orange peel
  • 4-8 ml Chaga Tincture
  • Optional: cinnamon leaf 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F

  1. Line a 9” cake pan with parchment paper and brush with olive oil 
  2. In a large bowl, add all dry ingredients and spices - set aside 
  3. In a medium bowl add sugar and zest. Combine well, letting the natural oil of the zest release into the sugar & then add egg yolks
  4. Whisk to combine
  5. Add coconut milk and vanilla extract. Whisk again 
  6. Slowly stream in olive oil, whisking as you go
  7. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, set aside 
  8. In a separate bowl or stand mixer, whip up egg whites until they reach a soft peak 
  9. Gently fold in egg white to the rest of the cake batter 
  10. Add in blood oranges and raspberries. Combine
  11. Pop in the oven for about 45 min

Mushroom Syrup 

  1. Combine all ingredients in a small pot and set over low heat
  2. Simmer until sugar has dissolved 
  3. As soon as dissolved take off the heat and set aside(we don’t want to reduce the syrup down all the way, we want the texture of the syrup to be somewhat watery) 
  4. When the cake is done cooking (poke test to make sure it comes out clean) poke the cake all over with a skewer (my preference, but you could use a fork) and then pour the syrup all over and let the syrup soak in for a few hours or so. Up to you! 

Since there is no dairy, the cake will really keep getting better over the next few days and refrigeration isn’t necessary!

 There is a bowl of orangey brown cake batter on a wooden cutting board next to some peeled blood oranges