Healthy Chocolate Cake…Don’t Let a Sweet Tooth Ruin Your Resolution

I think that it is safe to say that we all like the feeling of a fresh start. However, I am not one to make resolutions specific to the new year. If you have made a New Year’s resolution, this may be just the treat to make sure you don’t let a craving kill your progress. Personally, if I am going to splurge on dessert, I will, but there have been times when I was trying to watch calories more closely. If that is the case for you, this is a dessert that should fit right into a healthy eating or diet plan. Working on this recipe also gave me an excuse to use my new food processor…
I don’t normally include nutrition information with my recipes, but for this cake I have included the info at the bottom of my post. This cake has no added sugars (except from the dark chocolate chips), no added oils, and no flour. Due to the use of beans, it does have a slightly different texture than a normal cake. It tastes like a chocolaty banana bread.
Put beans, cocoa powder, bananas, cinnamon, and eggs into the food processor.
Blend until it is smooth and combined.
Pour into a greased 8×8 pan and sprinkle on some dark chocolate chips.
Bake for 30 minutes and enjoy. It can be served warm or once cooled.
Here are the nutrition facts based on the ingredients that I used. I used MyFitnessPal to calculate the nutrition information.
Recipe
Healthy Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
- 3 overripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder (if you don’t like really dark chocolate, try 2-3 tablespoons instead)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 40 dark chocolate (60% cacao) chips – sorry for the precise number, but I did it for the most accurate calorie count
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Put beans, bananas, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa powder into the bowl of the food processor.
- Blend everything on high until it is fully combined. I had to scrape the sides one time.
- Grease an 8×8 pan and pour the batter in.
- Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top.
- Bake for 30 minutes. A toothpick will come out clean.
Enjoy!
Jessica
Yum! I love anything with both chocolate and healthy in the title 🙂
I will have to try this!
Reblogged this on Healthy Eating Delicious Recipes.
Thank you!
Great idea, I will try it tomorrow with low fat cottage cheese I make myself instead of beans. It is perfect for those who love chocolate and have to cut sugars. Ideal for my husband. Thanks!
I would love to hear how it turns out with the cottage cheese! That sounds great!
I would let you know. It is a perfect timing for this recipe after all those indulgences. I have to have a healthy desert recipe with just a touch of sweetness, which comes from bananas. Never baked with bananas for us. Only used it for special grain and sugar free recipes. I have a feeling that I might reconsider it.
I think I overdid cocoa powder, so it was too bitter for me. The texture was different to your cake, less fluffy and more like chocolate cake made from chocolate. To balance the taste I used marzipan and white ganache icing. After that it was nice, but defeated the purpose. But I will use the combination of cottage cheese with cocoa powder and cinnamon and replace some or all bananas with almonds. Thanks again.
The cocoa powder is definitely a personal taste thing. As I warn in the recipe, I used 1/4 cup, but it can be cut down based on your liking. I am also thinking the sourness of the cottage cheese compared to the mild flavor of the garbanzo beans was not enough to mellow out the cocoa. It did have a more dense texture than a typical cake when I made it due to the beans. Thanks for giving it a try. 🙂