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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.
sooooo good!! Just made those together with my 2 year old and it was so easy and fun to put together – we did not even use a mixer, just mashed the bananas, and then mixed everything together, took whole wheat flour (as it’s more compact I took a bit less than indicated), used maple syrup instead of honey as I have an under-one-year-old who also wants to eat everything ;) It was in the oven for well 35 minutes and even though the knife came still out a bit sticky I removed it, and it’s suuuper moist, almost fudge-like, and very very delicious!
I tried this recipe as a test for my daughter’s first birthday cake and it is AWESOME!! However, I just learned that our pediatrician recommends avoiding honey until she is 2. Any idea what would happen if I just left the honey out completely? Or, could I increase the amount of bananas and leave out the honey? Sub maple syrup? Open to any ideas (we’re not super sensitive to sugar). Thanks!
You can definitely substitute maple syrup! Or I would try leaving it out too – haven’t tried it myself, but let us know!
I love it ! But i made little changes . .. i added 1/3 cup of toasted oatmeal flour  and mixed it with whole wheat of flour , also i added a little of soya milk .. flixable  recipe is a great recipe ??
So glad you made it your own!
Dear Beth, I have tried this recipe and it turned out very dry and crumbly and not even moist at all even though it was cooked for almost 1 and a half hours. Can you show me pictures of what state it should be in when the mixture was ready to go into the pan please. Coz mine was pretty crumblyy, not even smooth and not even blended together – it looked liked breadcrumbs in the pan. I substitute that flour with coconut flour perhaps I needed to add more eggs and abit of milk and coconut oil? What do you think? I am thinking of blending the mixture into powder again and add more eggs then bake the mixture again. What do you think?
Hi Vanessa! You said you baked this bake for 1 and 1/2 hours? This is way too long. The video will give you a good idea of the texture of the batter – it’s like a thick brownie batter.
Hi Beth, Can I substitute for coconut flour instead? Thanks
Hi Michelle! I haven’t tested it with coconut flour, so I can’t say for sure how it will work!
Could I use the blender to do all the mixing or does that add too much air?
Hi Maggie! I like to mix my flour in by hand – so thats the only thing I would be concerned about, over-mixing in the blender.
Lovely ingredients I used Spelt flour, tahini instead of peanut butter as don’t like the latter, also used soya yogurt and dairy free. Â However Honey is really a sugar just not a very refined processed one so technically your receipt is not ZERO sugar.Â
Thank you for the clarification!
Hi Beth, what would be the size of round pan if im want to make ths as a round cake ? And also baking time
Hi Rubenee! I would recommend an 8 inch round pan and I would first check the cake at 20 minutes and decide from there how much more time it needs!
How peanut buttery tasting is it? I want to make this for my moms birthday but she doesn’t like peanut butterÂ
Not peanut buttery tasting at all! It tastes more like a chocolate banana muffin!
Hi! Can I replace the honey for stevia? I want to make this diabetic friendly.
Hi PJ! I haven’t tried that swap myself so I’m not sure how it would turn out.