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Healthier Chocolate Cake tastes like a double chocolate chip banana muffin! No sugar, butter or oil but uses bananas, greek yogurt and honey instead!
This Healthier Chocolate Cake recipe contains ZERO sugar, butter, or oil. And this is just the first recipe out of several that we’re going to share that is healthier.
Is It Even Possible To Make a Healthier Chocolate Cake?
WHAT?! I know.. I was wondering if I was going crazy because butter & sugar are like my BFFs.
I never really saw this day coming.. it wasn’t really intentional. Well, kind of. Obviously with it being January and everyone is jumping on the gym and healthy eating train.. what’s a dessert blogger to do?
I wallowed with a big bowl of ice cream for a while, but than I thought “Is it possible to make a baked recipe with NO sugar?”
All of my friends who are healthy and paleo bloggers are probably laughing right now since that’s their jam, but I set out to discover if this whole no sugar thing could work.
After I baked up this awesome chocolate cake, I was bragging to Ryan that it didn’t have any sugar, but that it’s sweetened by bananas and honey, but being the chemist he is, he totally called me out and said that honey is sugar.
Well yeah.. but it’s more natural sugar I replied, and then he ate like 4 pieces of this cake. Booyah, honey for the win!
Protein balls are another great sweet but healthier treat option to try!
Healthy chocolate cake ingredients
- bananas: sweetness and fat
- greek yogurt: healthier fat compared to oil or butter
- honey: natural sweetener compared to sugar
- vanilla: flavor!
- creamy peanut butter: healthy fat and flavor
- egg: leavener and binder
- all purpose flour: gives structure
- cocoa powder: deep rich chocolate flavor
- baking soda: leavener
- chocolate chips: hello, necessary!!
How to make healthier chocolate cake with bananas from scratch
- Blend the bananas, greek yogurt, honey, vanilla, and peanut butter.
- Pour the blended mixture into a mixing bowl. Add the egg and mix in.
- Add the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda, mix until incorporated.
- Add the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, mix.
- Pour the cake into the prepared pan. Sprinkle addition chocolate chips on top of the cake if desired. Bake for 27-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
What does healthier chocolate cake taste like?
The best way to describe this skinny chocolate cake is that it tastes like a GIANT banana chocolate chocolate chip muffin! It’s so good by itself and it’s also really good with ice cream (espresso chip, just in case you were curious!)
Whenever I get a hankering for brownies, I’m going to bust out this recipe. I love that it’s better for me but taste just as good!
More healthier desserts
Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
Healthier Fudgy Brownies
Healthier Banana Bread
Healthy Dark Chocolate Cookies
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Healthier Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 3 bananas, ripe
- ½ cup greek yogurt, vanilla or plain
- ⅓ cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour **can be made GF, see note
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- mini chocolate chips for sprinkling on top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350º F.
- Spray an 8 inch square pan with cooking spray.
- In a blender, combine the bananas, greek yogurt, honey, vanilla, and peanut butter. Blend until smooth, 1-2 minutes.
- Pour the blended mixture into a mixing bowl. Add the egg and mix in.
- Add the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda, mix until incorporated.
- Add the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, mix.
- Pour the cake into the prepared pan. Sprinkle addition chocolate chips on top of the cake if desired.
- Bake for 27-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclosure
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
I made mine exactly as recipe instructed. Cake was extremely dry and the cocoa did not fully incorporate. Suggest shifting cocoa in and using care to ensure its fully incorporated. I used flour as recipe recommended. Overall there was no flavor and too dry to serve. Hopefully others have better luck!
Some of us diabetics can’t have honey either.
I have made probably 100 pans of these. I make a giant batch in an evening and cut the cake into squares the next day after totally cooled and freeze on a parchment covered pan for an hour or two and then bag them up. If they are defrosted in an airtight container they are VERY moist like first baked!
I have found that 3 medium bananas works best, too large and it is too wet, too small and it is too dry. Experiment.
There IS refined sugar in this because of the chocolate chips, I tried leaving them out once and it is NOT the same. Perhaps a sugar free chip might make it totally refined sugar free. Of course honey is also sugar..healthier but still sugar for those that have to be aware of that. I have given out this recipe so many times..it is our go to snack for company and I always have some in the freezer!
I noted someone having issues with incorporating the cacao powder and flour. I use whole wheat PASTRY flour for a really nice texture, finer than whole wheat and still gives you the whole wheat in the mix..I see it can also work with gluten free as well.
So when I make up batches of this stuff (worth it to do at LEAST two pans at a time!) I put my flour, cacao powder and baking soda in a bowl and use a whisk to get it all incorporated. My sifter is so old and rusty I didn’t bother getting a new one! Whisking the dry ingredients together works just great, you can see when it is a homogenous color.
I note that people that use too small of bananas, it is always dry..again experiment.. Nice chubby medium bananas work great! Or a combo of large and small if that is all you can get..
Oh my gosh, this is so good! I’ve made it a couple of times for my kids and they absolutely love it. It’s super moist and delicious, and best of all it’s super healthy! I actually substituted peanut butter for almond butter or sunflower butter because one of my kids have a peanut allergy. It’s great and tasty, and I totally recommend it.
I would make this again. While it does not have a cake texture exactly, it feels indulgent and satisfies that chocolate desert craving while having some nutritional value. I made it in a 9 inch round pan so that it would look more like a cake (sprayed with PAM and put parchment on the bottom so that it would remove easily). I also skipped the blender step and used my regular stand mixer instead because I was trying to be quiet, but maybe the blender results in a more cakey texture.
I made the cake per the recipe, only subbing veg oil for peanut butter since I had none, and excluding the chocolate chips. It was phenomenal! I doubled the recipe to make a two layer cake and used the avocado chocolate frosting recommended by another commenter. Everyone raved; and of course the best thing is that it feels like a healthy treat.
Thank you!!!
Hi, it came out great, definitely on the less sweet side (i left out choc chips) and also maybe on the drier side, but I guess it is related to the baking time…? how would you advise to keep it overnight? I want to bake it in the evening, and frost it in the morning. Thank you!
You can store it on the counter overnight!
I used the recipe but made muffins/cupcakes out of them. Baked at 350 for 19 minutes and they were perfect. We put a different flavor of chocolate chips in each to try out variety. Thank you for this healthy recipe!
Hi,
I’ve made this recipe a few times & it’s always worked out well & been delicious, but this time it was really dense and stodgy (not that our 5 year old birthday boy minded!); could this be down to ‘over mixing’? The only thing I did differently this time around was use a hand whisk to try to save a bit of time. Any tips/tricks/solutions would be really appreciated so I can re make and it be delicious again! TIA x
Hi Alice – so you didn’t blend the bananas, greek yogurt, honey, vanilla, and peanut butter?