Mother’s Day Special: Low-FODMAP Sachertorte

Surprise your mother this Mother’s Day with a delicious low-FODMAP chocolate cake! Sachertorte is a famous Austrian chocolate cake consisting of two layers of soft chocolate cake, separated by a layer of thin apricot jam and covered with a thick layer of dark chocolate icing. Can’t this be anything but enjoyment?

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 175 g dark chocolate +85%
• 6 eggs (size L)
• 17 g sucralose (equivalent to 170 g sugar)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50 g ground almonds
• 125 g white spelt flour *
• 8 g baking powder
• 140 ml mild extra virgin olive oil or sunflower oil

Filling:

• 100 g sugar-free strawberry jam

Chocolate glaze:

• 150 g chocolate +85%
• 60 g dextrose (equivalent to 50 g sugar)
• 120 ml water

*For a gluten-free version, replace with: 73 g buckwheat flour and 44 g rice flour

Instructions:

1. Mix the oil and the sweetener together with the vanilla essence.
2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, in intervals of 30 seconds, making sure it doesn’t burn, or you can also do it using a double boiler. Add this mixture to the previous one.
3. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Add the yolks one by one to the previous mixture and keep stirring.
4. Beat the egg whites stiff using an electric mixer and a pinch of salt.
5. Gently fold in the egg whites.
6. Add the spelt flour, ground almonds, and sifted baking powder. Stir again.
7. Grease your baking tin with oil. You can cover the bottom with parchment paper; it makes it easier to demold.
8. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and bake for 40-45 minutes at 180ºC, in a preheated oven. Do not open the oven until 30 minutes have passed. To check if your cake is ready, you can insert a toothpick or knife into it; if it comes out clean, it’s done.
9. Let cool to room temperature.
10. Carefully slice the cooled cake in half with a knife. Fill it with the jam and place the other half on top.
11. Then, heat the chocolate, water, and dextrose in a pan over low heat until the chocolate melts.
12. Pour this mixture over the dessert and let it cool. After some time, put it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

FODMAPs:

Chocolate: Cocoa is low in FODMAPs, but it is advisable to choose chocolate bars with a purity of more than 85%; this way, the sugar content is lower and you avoid the added milk (and thus lactose).

Spelt flour: Has half the fructans of regular wheat, making it often better tolerated. However, you can replace it with other types of flour or gluten-free alternatives.

Ground almonds: A portion of 33 g almond meal per intake is considered low in FODMAPs. Keep in mind that the servings of this cake are for about ten portions.

Strawberry jam: The original recipe uses apricot jam, a fruit with a high sorbitol content and therefore high in FODMAPs. That’s why we replace it with strawberry jam, which is often better tolerated. Use sugar-free jam (and avoid those sweetened with polyols) to reduce the sucrose content if you have poor tolerance. There are alternatives on the market sweetened with sucralose. Or you can make it with fresh fruit (the less ripe, the better); put it in a pan with your favorite sweetener and a few drops of lemon juice, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes over low heat.

Sweeteners: Use as desired. I have chosen alternatives that do not contain fructose in their composition and are often well tolerated by people following a low-FODMAP diet. At the top of the ingredients list, you have the equivalence to replace with any sweetener.

Suitable for:

• People following a low-FODMAP diet with IBS, SIBO, or other digestive disorders
• Lactose-free
• For a gluten-free version, replace with certified flour types, the recipe has the equivalences.

This is a recipe by Iris Valenciano, the creator of Comiendobien.es. This is a Spanish website where you can find different recipes for different food intolerances, especially for fructose intolerance/malabsorption