Healthy Chocolate Cake

This healthy chocolate cake is super moist, made a little healthier with whole wheat flour and is honey-sweetened. It can also be made gluten-free and vegan!

Hello everyone!  I’m so excited to finally be writing to you again!  I’ve been busy with running a sourdough micro-bakery out of my home and a very large whole house renovation and that’s on top of working part-time and taking care of my family! 🙂

I’ve always had big plans for Food Doodles, but unfortunately I will never have the time to make those big plans a reality so I’m very happy to announce to you that my good friend Erin will be taking over Food Doodles from now on.  Erin and I have been blog friends for many years and from the beginning, our style of blogging has been very similar.  

Not to mention she has some wonderful recipes, I have tried and enjoyed many of them!  I know she will share some amazing recipes with you!  

I’ve enjoyed my time with Food Doodles so much, but it’s time for me to move on.  Food blogging has been an awesome experience for me, thank you all for being a part of that!  

For now, I’m so excited to see what Erin has in store for Food Doodles. I know it will be awesome! 🙂

Hi everyone! Erin here. I’m super excited to be taking over the reins here at Food Doodles. Heidi and I started our blogs around the same time 8 years ago and we both posted the same kind of recipes (except I really just post sweets and nothing savory). 

I’m just returning from maternity leave and am excited to have a second blog where I can post not just sweet recipes like on my blog, but also some savory ones as well!

So now on to this healthy chocolate cake! It’s seriously super moist and is whole grain and honey-sweetened. If you prefer, you can make it gluten-free or vegan!  

I list a lot of options for the flour, sweetener and eggs. Each version is just as delicious but you can tell a difference between the version with 1 cup of honey versus 2 cups of granulated / coconut sugar.

The honey version is clearly less sweet than the other one, but under the frosting, I think it’s still sweet enough!

I’ve also tried this healthy chocolate cake with chia eggs, in case you’d like to make this cake egg-free or vegan! It worked great.

Additionally, there are several choices for the flour. Whole wheat, white whole wheat, whole spelt or all-purpose flour all work. I’ve tried them all.

For a gluten-free version, I used my favorite gluten-free baking mix, this one from Bob’s Red Mill. Other brands might work in this recipe but I can’t guarantee it. 

There’s a huge difference in baking times depending on what combination of flour, sugar and egg you use. The whole wheat / egg / honey version took 48 minutes. The gluten-free / chia egg / honey version only took 22 minutes.

I was so surprised and sure that I had made a mistake that I baked the cakes a second time in one night. It was correct!

The sprinkles I used definitely aren’t healthy. I’ve read about ColorKitchen Rainbow Sprinkles from Nature but haven’t tried them (we don’t have them in Germany so I’d have to order them from the US). If you have tips on good naturally colored sprinkles please send them my way!

Some natural topping ideas would be fresh berries or dried raspberries. 

For the topping, I used a mix of cocoa powder, honey or maple syrup, coconut oil and nut butter to create some healthy chocolate fudge frosting.

I actually prefer this healthier cream cheese frosting on this chocolate cake. But I prefer that frosting on everything, so that’s not a big surprise!

The amount that the cream cheese frosting recipe yields is perfect for this cake. I hope you’ll enjoy this cake should you try it! I’d love to hear how it goes. 🙂

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Healthy Chocolate Cake (whole wheat, gluten-free, vegan options)

This healthy chocolate cake is super moist, made a little healthier with whole wheat flour and is honey-sweetened. Can also be made gluten-free or vegan!

Author: Erin @ Food Doodles

Ingredients

• 1 cup (320 grams) honey* or 2 cups (400 gram) granulated sugar or coconut sugar
• 1 3/4 cups (210 grams) whole spelt flour, whole wheat flour, white whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour or 1 3/4 cups (236 gram) Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten-free baking flour for a gluten-free version
• 3/4 cup (85 grams) cocoa powder (I prefer Dutch-process)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs (50 grams each, out of shell or 2 chia eggs** for vegan)
• 1 cup (240 milliliters) milk of choice***
• 1/2 cup (120 milliliters) olive oil (or another neutral-tasting vegetable oil that's liquid at room temp)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup (240 milliliters) boiling water (this is not a typo!)

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 325 °F (167 °C). If not using honey (which bakes quicker than sugar, hence the lower temperature), preheat to 350 °F (175 °C).

2. Line a 9"x13" pan with a piece of parchment paper.

3. In a large bowl, stir together the sugar (if using honey, don’t add it yet), flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Add eggs, milk, honey (if using), olive oil and vanilla. Mix for 2 minutes on medium and then stir in the boiling water. The batter will be almost as thin as water. Pour into the parchment-lined pan.
   

5. The bake time will vary widely depending on what combination of sugar / eggs / flour you use. The whole wheat / egg / honey version took 48 minutes. The gluten-free / chia egg / honey version only took 22 minutes. For the gluten-free or egg-free versions, I recommend to start checking at 20 minutes and then every 5 minutes after that. Otherwise, start checking at 30 minutes and every 5 minutes after that. Bake until a toothpick comes out with some moist crumbs, but no liquid.
   

6. Let cool completely before frosting (frosting recipe is down below).

Recipe Notes

* You can use whatever type of milk you’d like. If you use canned coconut milk, water it down using 1/3 cup coconut milk and 2/3 cup water so that it’s runny like regular milk. If you need this cake to be dairy-free or vegan, make sure to use dairy-free milk.
** If using raw honey that’s crystallized, you can just measure it out into the bowl where you’re mixing all the liquids, and let it sit for 5 minutes. That worked for me.
*** To make a chia egg, mix together 2 tablespoons of ground chia seed with 6 tablespoons of water. Let sit for about minute until goopy like a regular egg.

Tagged as: cocoa powder, eggs, whole wheat flour