A healthy and low fat chocolate cake recipe that tastes so sinful you will never believe it!
There is NO oil needed for this chocolate cake!
The recipe gets rave reviews every single time I make it… even from people who aren’t normally fans of healthy desserts!
It can definitely hold its own against any high-calorie chocolate cake from a fancy restaurant or cake shop, and no one ever guesses it isn’t full of fat and sugar.
Also Try These Overnight Oats – 15 Recipes
Bonus points: There are no crazy ingredients in this recipe.
No offense to my cauliflower based Healthy Chocolate Cake.
By using yogurt (I like nondairy yogurt) you can cut way back on the fat and empty calories while still retaining all of the moisture and richness of a traditional cake made with oil.
Years of experience have taught me that chocolate tastes much better when some fat is included, and therefore I chose to add a little nut butter to the healthy chocolate cake recipe as well (for allergy-friendly, you can use Sunbutter or Peabutter).
Can you think of a better way to spend one’s birthday (my birthday was this past Saturday) than taste-testing chocolate cakes?
I couldn’t, and so this is exactly what I did!
Anyways, back to the chocolate cake…
What was your BEST birthday ever?
Although my best birthday was probably my 16th, this past birthday came pretty close. When it started to lightning and pour rain around 8 PM, I was initially worried no one would show up.
But the rain quickly dissipated, and I had an amazing night in downtown DC with around 30 close friends, none of whom I knew a year ago.
It was completely terrifying to start over when I first moved to the area, and I think last Saturday was the first time I realized I finally didn’t feel like an outsider anymore.
P.S. If you need ideas for your next birthday, please feel free to steal my idea of spending the day eating chocolate cake!
Watch the video above for how to make a low calorie chocolate cake
100 Calorie Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup spelt, white, or gf ap flour
- 6 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp each: baking soda and salt
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar of choice or xylitol
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, optional
- 1/4 cup yogurt (I like nondairy)
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup almond butter, peanut butter, OR allergy-friendly sub – For a nut-free cake, try my Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease an 8-in square or round pan. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, optional chips, and sweetener, and stir very well. (If your nut butter is not stir-able, gently heat it until stir-able.) In a new bowl, whisk together the nut butter, yogurt, water, and vanilla. Pour wet into dry and stir until just combined (don’t over-mix), then pour into the greased pan. Bake 25 minutes or until batter has risen and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out mostly clean. (I like to take it out when it’s still a little undercooked, let it cool, and then set in the fridge overnight. This prevents overcooking, and the cake will still firm up nicely as it sits.) If you can wait, I highly recommend not taking a taste until the next day… this cake is so much richer and sweeter after sitting for a day. Trust me! View Nutrition Facts
Notes
More Low Calorie Recipes
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
Cinnamon Sugar Pillow Cookies (vegan recipe)
Low Calorie Desserts – 10 Recipes
So… this is a tricky one! I ran the ingredients through Livestrong and came up with a 220+ calorie-per-slice cake. Then I realized, ah… no real sugar. So I edited out my coconut sugar and still came up with a lot more calories. Hmm. Next, I realized, ah ha! The chocolate chips are not included in the estimate (as they are an optional ingredient). So, with no chips, and using 3/4 cup Swerve, I hit exactly 100 calories per slice, as you did. I made this with your banana PB frosting–amazing! I didn’t have any peanut butter (story of my life!) so I mixed bananas and coconut oil with PB2 and came up with something fluffy, peanut buttery and banana-y, and still only about 40 calories per tablespoon. And this was a DELICIOUS cake! And a decently sized portion, too! Probably the first real cake I’ve eaten in a year. Wish I didn’t have to count calories, but the last time I tried NOT counting calories, I tried Paleo, and gained 10 pounds in six months. But anyhoo, anyone who makes this needs to be aware that if you use any kind of calorie-containing sugar and the chocolate chips, you’re going to end up with more calories than 100 per slice. And frosting adds more calories, of course. Important to those of us who count every calorie.
Hi Katie, just wondering if I could make this in a loaf tin? I’m making a cake for an assessment at school and want it to be piano shaped! By the way I have made Sugar Free Cookie Pie and Peanut Butter Pie in the past and they were totally delicious, so I’m sure this one will taste amazing too. 🙂
I paired this cake with your banana-split chocolate butter and omg I looove it! It made my morning magical. After finding your website, I’ve found that healthy eating isn’t quite so hard any more 🙂 Thank you for your recipes!
Does your calorie count include the chocolate chips and frosting?
Great cake! Didn’t have yogurt. so used sour cream instead. Also, baking powder, instead of baking soda, & coconut sugar for the sugar. Used the cauliflower chocolate cake frosting & worked great. Husband said it was like a very rich brownie. Thanks for a great recipe!
This looks fab but just wondering if I am calculating this wrong- how is this cake 100 calories? 1/4 cup of nut butter itself is well over 100, was just wondering if I am calculating this wrong or if this recipe yields more than “one” cake (hehe).
Needless to say- excited to try this!
Taylor…that’s the amount of calories per serving
Wow lmao, right. Apparently I wasn’t awake an hour ago hahaha
Yes, oil is still needed because the peanut butter or almond butter you use in the recipe contains oil!! Nuts, and nut butters, contain oil. You do save some on calories though, since 1/4 c of peanut butter contains less fat grams than the same amount of oil.
Don’t get me wrong, I love your recipes. Let’s be real though. There is oil in this recipe from the peanut butter or whatever nut butter is used. If it didn’t have oil, in other words fat, then it would taste like cardboard. What concetns me is the whole diet mentality. Why feed into that dysfunctional, unhealthy way of thinking? Fat is not bad for you if it’s a good fat so why try and appeal to people’s fear about eating fat and getting fat? Just call it what it is…a marketing technique to get the attention of those who
are drawn to any recipe that is touted as being low calorie because they’re more obsessed with their weight than with health. People should be more concerned with the sugar…that’s what makes people fat.
I wonder if you can use safflower oil or coconut oil instead of the nut butter?
If you have her cookbook, try the Chocolate Obsession Cake. It uses oil and not nut butter, and it is FANTASTIC!
I’m a flight attendant in training, living in a hotel for two months and trying to eat healthy and fit in my uniform. Do you have some healthy/low cal delicious microwave recipes that I can make?