A healthy & surprisingly delicious avocado chocolate cake!
No oil, no butter, and just 75 calories ♥
I once read somewhere that you can sub avocado for the oil or butter in a recipe to add nutrition, cut back on fat and calories, and give baked goods a deliciously soft texture. So when a reader recently left a comment asking what she could use in place of the nut butter in my 100 Calorie Chocolate Cake, avocado was the first thing that came to my mind. Immediately, I had to try it out.
The results?
A super rich and fudgy chocolate cake with an incredibly light texture.
Shown above, frosted with my favorite Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting.
You can use any of your favorite chocolate or vanilla frosting recipes here—or lightly dust the avocado chocolate cake with powdered sugar or even top it with coconut butter and fresh berries if you’d prefer.
My previous baking attempts with avocado—trying to create a recipe for avocado brownies—were abysmally awful. (And yes, I’m aware those two words mean the same thing. Trust me; the brownies warrant the tautology. They were that bad.)
So I cannot tell you how excited I am that this avocado chocolate cake turned out so perfectly!
You won’t be able to taste the avocado at all!
Avocado Chocolate Cake
Avocado Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup spelt, white, Bob’s gf, or whole wheat pastry flour
- 6 tbsp cacao or unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup xylitol or granulated sugar of choice (140g)
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, optional
- 1/4 cup yogurt of choice (such as Wholesoy) (60g)
- 3/4 cup water (180g)
- 1/4 cup mashed avocado, measured after mashing (60g)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (8g)
Instructions
Avocado Chocolate Cake Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and grease an 8-in square or round pan. (Or double the recipe for a double-layer cake.) Set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, optional chips, and sweetener, and stir very well. In a separate bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients. 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 clean. Put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before taking even a single bite. Trust me!
Have you ever tried eating avocado in an unconventional way?
Such as in chocolate avocado pudding or an avocado smoothie? Would you ever be brave enough to try baking with it? Will you try this avocado chocolate cake??!
Link Of The Day:
I have done avocado chocolate pudding in the past, it was DELICIOUS. I look forward to making this cake!! My mom’s birthday is in a few days, she is diabetic and a big chocolate cake fan, so this recipe came just in time 🙂 I’m excited to try it!
Question…I notice a lot of time you’ll put mini chocolate chips in your recipes as optional but make it clear that it tastes way better with them. I personally try to avoid sugar where possible so I was just wondering if adding another source of fat (like coconut oil) would give the recipe that flavor boost without compromising the consistency of the recipe.
Hi Holly,
What about using these? https://lett-trim.today/2012/01/15/three-ingredient-chocolate-bars-1/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Break up pieces and use as chocolate chips. They will probably fully melt in the baked recipes, but it seems like they’d give a rich flavor. You can add the stevia or leave it out. But if you do try this in any of the recipes, be sure to report back with results!
I’m gonna try them as soon as my avocados are ripe! Finally some healthy choco only cake for me! When you’re free, hopefully you can experiment making avocado choco cookie without dark choco chunks. All the recipes out there call for them O.O Thanks for this recipe, Katie!
Yum, yum, YUM hihi <3
I don’t like bananas so use avocado in place of banana in most smoothie recipes. I also love chocolate avocado pudding and this week created my first Acai bowl (now addicted) using freeze dried Acai (we can’t get the puree in the UK), avocado and frozen blueberries instead of Acai puree and frozen banana. It’s fantastic. I will definitely try this.
Wow. This tastes phenomenal. It’s amazing how moist this turns out! Using the avocado really helps prevent the final product from being “gummy” (such is the case, I’ve found, with most oil subs).
I followed the recipe exactly but used 1/4 cup choco chips, stevia in the raw (I recommend using at least some regular sugar if you don’t like the taste of the artificial sweeteners), and the yogurt I used was “La Chocolat” chocolate and cherries because it’s what I had in the fridge. I also only put it in for 25 minutes. For frosting, I just bought Hershey’s Special Dark frosting and it was delicious!
This may be my favorite CCK recipe so far…and I think I’ve just convinced my roommates to try unconventional, “healthy” subs 😉 Thank you, Katie!
Thank YOU so much for making it 🙂
This cake is delicious!!! This is my new favorite and will definitely be my “go to” chocolate cake recipe from now on. Katie, you’re brilliant 🙂
Just made this cake – it was moist & delish. I was a bit apprehensive as I am not a huge fan of avocado (even though I love chips & guacamole). My only disappointment came with the nutritional info as the calories, fat, etc were much higher than presented (almost double) with the inclusion of half cup of chocolate chips . Next time I will be sure to use less chocolate chips.
Hi Justine,
Unless otherwise stated, optional ingredients are never included in nutritional analyses because the recipes are still good with or without these ingredients. The cake is still delicious if you want to omit the chips next time 🙂
I made this in a double layer on Sunday for my mom’s birthday. The only change I made was I pureed the avocado, because if my dad saw green, he wouldn’t eat it. This cake is fantastic! It’s so rich and fudgey. I topped it with homemade peanut butter frosting, which compliments it perfectly. I will keep this recipe for years. Thanks Katie!
Wow! This is amazing! Mine tasted just like a chocolate torte or flour less chocolate cake… sooo yummy!