Okay, so let’s talk chocolate cake – a luxurious refined sugar free chocolate cake so moist and soft… and all for under 200 calories per serving!
This recipe is thanks to your feedback!
Many of you have been requesting more refined sugar free recipes, and I love when you request recipes! Please always feel free to leave suggestions, questions, and feedback about anything at all! Speaking of which…
I want the new Chocolate-Covered Katie to be a place you will really love.
We’re reading all of your feedback on the new blog reveal and are making changes I hope you’ll be excited about! Based on your requests, we’re changing the recipe pages to a new format (yay!), we moved the search bar closer to the top and added a pin button, and if there are other things you’d still like to see, please feel free to let us know. This is going to be so awesome when it’s finished!!!
Love you guys.
xoxo Now on to cake!
This refined sugar free chocolate cake recipe is everything a chocolate cake should be – soft and fluffy, never dense or gummy like refined sugar free baked goods can sometimes turn out. The recipe will completely redefine what you think of when you picture chocolate cake made without sugar.
(As a side note, if you want to take any of my recipes that call for sugar and make them refined-sugar-free, simply use a cup of coconut sugar or sucanat or evaporated cane juice for every cup of sugar called for in a recipe.)
Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Cake | Vegan, GF Options
Ingredients
Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Cake
- 2/3 cup milk of choice
- 1 1/2 tsp vinegar
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup (or honey or agave)
- 1/4 cup vegetable or melted coconut oil (Or here is an Oil Free Chocolate Cake)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder (not dutch)
- 1 cup loosely packed spelt, white, or gf all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- optional 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Cake Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 F, and grease an 8-inch square or round baking pan. Whisk together the first 5 ingredients, and set aside for at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, stir together the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl until well-mixed. Pour wet into dry, stir just until evenly mixed, and transfer to the prepared pan. Bake 20 minutes on the middle rack, or until cake is light and fluffy and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (If using a 9-inch pan for a thinner cake, you may have to experiment with the baking time.)
Coming up in my next post? A brand new cheesecake recipe!!! Oh yes… I told you the new Chocolate-Covered Katie is going to be really fantastic!!! 🙂
LINK OF THE DAY:
Dark Chocolate Banana Bread – (vegan, gf, refined-sugar-free)
Do you have to have vinegar? Can you replace it with something?
The vinegar is probably what causes the baking soda to react and the cake to rise. You might be able to replace it with another acid, like buttermilk (if you’re not vegan) or maaayyybe lemon juice with a non-dairy milk, but I’ve never tried that in baking.
Yes, vinegar is often necessary in combination with baking soda. However, this recipe doesn’t have baking soda. I too am wondering why vinegar is used with baking power, as baking powder already has acid in the mixture.
This looks amazing!
This looks amazing! I love the new website!
Hi Katie!
I’ll be the dissenting voice here and say that I actually prefer the “refined sugar recipes”, because I know I can always use xylitol, which I’m convinced is much healthier than any form of sugar, refined or otherwise. When recipes call for liquid sweeteners like maple syrup I’m always less keen to make them, precisely because of the sugar content. Unless you know of a liquid version of xylitol or stevia??
The only thing I can think of would possibly be boiling it down for simple syrup. But I’ve not tried. I think you’re better off just finding recipes that call for sugar in the first place instead of trying to substitute. For example, my cookbook has a chocolate cake recipe and there is also a chocolate cake recipe linked in this recipe (the oil-free link) that would work for you 🙂
Thank you Katie! I will check out the link.
Same. I see a lot of vegans substituting mounds of sugary stuff for animal products or real sugar. It’s not any healthier and, in some cases, it’s worse for you. I’m not saying this is, but it’s the fault in the vegan community I’ve avoided since I became vegan as I see years of being overweight for many vegans if they continue down this path.
Dear Katie
This is a brilliant recipe for health conscious people like me. I would like to know how you made the frosting.
I know this is older, but I’m glad you said something. Maple syrup and agave ARE technically refined sugar; I like how Katie uses dates and other natural sweeteners in other recipes. I’m disappointed that this recipe is not using those as sweetness.
Sorry, but Katie is correct. Maple syrup is not a refined sugar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrefined_sweeteners
Katie, I love your website and what you’re doing to make healthier vegan desserts and other foods as I am a longstanding vegan. I looked at the refined sugar chocolate cake recipe and it has maple syrup. You also mention that if you want to make any recipe refined sugar free, just replace the sugar with coconut sugar, sucanat or cane juice crystals. Katie, these sweeteners are definitely healthier than white sugar but they are all refined sugars with a similar calorie count as white sugar. They’re all concentrated sugar sources. So using these sweeteners does not make a recipe refined sugar free. It just makes the recipe a healthier refined sugar free recipe. The only recipes that are refined sugar free are those using xylitol (sugar alcohol), stevia, dates or date sugar (which is just dehydrated dates ground up).
Hi Diana, thanks for the comment, and you’re right that they do still have calories. But they are considered unrefined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrefined_sweeteners. I do agree with you that it doesn’t mean we should think of any type of sugar as being healthy (with the exception of blackstrap molasses).
YUM!
Yum, I love chocolate . Well who doesn’t 😉
Am I the only one dying to know what chocolatey goodness is slathered on top? Looks divine but I just gotta know that part too 🙂
I made my own easy “healthy chocolate sauce” ganache 🙂
https://lett-trim.today/2010/05/20/homemade-artisana-cacao-bliss/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I always like to see more refund sugar free recipes. They are a little better than just sugar free…but completely sugar free is what I’d really love. I don’t buy expensive sugars like xylitol, and I’d really prefer more whole foods in what I eat. So bring on the fruit- or stevia- sweetened goodness!
Also, I know you have plenty of truly sugar free recipes, but they are so hard to find, because everything with a xylitol option is tagged sugar free!
I love the new look. Especially for mobile! Thank you!
Not sure where to post a general request so am posting it here? I LOVEyour recipes!! Could you come up with a no bake Pumpkin pie? I love your CHOCOLATE no bake pumpkin pie but am not sure just how to convert that into a regular Thanksgiving quality pumpkin pie??
Thanks!
Will definitely put it on my list! I do have some new pumpkin recipes hopefully to post soon 🙂
What if you used the pumpkin cookie dough and threw it in a pie shell?
https://lett-trim.today/tag/pumpkin/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Or what about the pumpkin cheesecake bars?
Katie, I absolutely love the new site! Its so refreshing and totally represents you and your personality. If I used a gluten free flour for this recipe what would be my ratios? Or could I use just 1 flour? I have Millet, Sorghum, Arrowroot, and Oat Flours.
For the gf option, I’ve only tried it with Bob’s all-purpose gf so I can’t say for sure. Oat flour might be gummy but have a nice taste if you don’t mind the texture. Not sure about the other two, but be sure to report back if you experiment!
I used to like Bob’s all purpose GF flour but the taste of the bean flours are not pleasant for me. I will try to mix the Sorghum and Millet and then add the arrowroot starch to give it a lighter texture. I will let you know how it comes out 🙂 Your recipes have changed my life! Your texas sheet cake is to die for!
I don’t bake gluten free, but my friend with Celiac Disease says to mix your flours in a 40/60 ratio of whole grain to starch. It looks like your millet, oat, and sorghum are all whole grain and your arrowroot counts as a starch (as does cornstarch, if you have that, as well). He says it doesn’t really matter how many different flours or which different flours you use for each of the two types, as long as the overall ratio is correct.
Sugar free chocolate? That sounds divine!! Definately going to get my hands on this recipe this weekend.
Katie, I love your recipes and I am loving the new website layout. The chocolate cake looks amazing, I am going to make it this weekend, can’t wait. Speaking of recipe requests, I don’t have a specific request but I do have a general one. Can you try to explore desserts from other parts of the world and try to make them a bit healthier? I am from India, and we have some awesome desserts (think kheer, gulab jamun, halwas, rasgulla…). They taste amazing but the calorie counts on them will literally give you a heart attack. I would love it if you can put some of them on your to-do list.
I can definitely try! There are a lot of international recipes on my to-make list… I need to get on that!
YUM.
http://www.whitewallsandwanderlust.wordpress.com
Just to be sure, a gum isn’t mentioned for gluten free. Do I need it or not?
I accidentally forgot it once while baking a cake with Bob’s gf flour, and I discovered it was just fine without the gum. So since then I have never used it for recipes when using Bob’s gf flour and have not had any issues. Hope that helps!
I’m not a gluten free expert, but the gums are (mostly) used to replace the gluten that’s lacking in gluten free flours. However, things like cakes, cookies, etc. don’t actually need gluten. In fact, they’re hindered by it – you know all those cake and muffin recipes that call for you not to over mix? That’s to avoid activating the gluten, which makes the baked goods heavy and gummy.
Things like breads need gluten, since that’s what causes them to be soft and springy and chewy, which is when the gums come in handy, but with the right combo of flours you shouldn’t need gums for non-bready goods. 🙂
Made this today with my daughter, turned out absolutely perfect! Ran out of maple syrup, so I had to combine it with honey and the cake was delicious! No substitutions needed!
Thank you so much for making it!