Recipe: Healthier Chocolate Mayo Cake with Healthy Chocolate Frosting

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Healthier Chocolate Mayo Cake with Healthy Chocolate Frosting

Now, I'm not trying to claim this is a healthy cake - its chocolate and sweet things, but as I have mentioned I am trying to cut out as much processed sugar as possible from my diet, and cut down on the amount of other sugars too, because I was eating way too much junk. This has led me to trying sugar alternatives (not sweeteners - because I hate them and lots of them are terrible for us) like honey and maple, because these have good properties as well as all the calories. 😂 Before you say it, I know, it's still sugar, but it's better than all the processed stuff.

This is a fabulous site for working out how to bake with honey rather than sugar: BeeMaid Honey Converter.

So this recipe is based off of this one: Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake, but mine is way smaller and also uses honey and maple for the main cake and has a healthy frosting.

This cake comes out very dark, moist and rich - I would recommend it to dark chocolate lovers. Probably not the best cake for children as is, since they tend to like sweeter things. [Edit - have a chance to test this out - my sister says it is delicious - see the bottom for an alternative, coffee buttercream frosting for those with a sweeter tooth.]

Makes a 7 inch cake - just scale up for more.

Ingredients

For the cake

• 1 large egg
• 87g 2/3cup plain/all purpose flour
• 23g/ 1/4cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/3 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 tsp baking soda
• a smidgen of salt
• 50ml honey
• 37ml maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 73g 1/3 cup mayo (full fat or light)
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in just under 1/2 cup of water (or just water if you don't want you cake so dark)
• 50g extra dark chocolate chips

For the frosting (from here)

• 50g  1/5 cup cocoa powder
• 60g 1/4 cup Greek yoghurt
• 2-3 tbsp honey

Instructions

1. Preheat the over to 160C/320F
2. Butter or spray a 7 inch round cake pan (or quiv) and line the bottom with baking paper.
3. Sieve together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl - set aside.
4. Using a stand mixer with a paddle or a hand mixer, combine the egg, honey, maple and vanilla in a large bowl on high speed for 4-5 mins until they are light in colour and fluffyish in texture.
5. Add the mayo and combine on low speed.
6. Use a spatula to make sure nothing is stuck to the sides of the bowl.
7. Starting and ending with the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and mix slowly, then some of the coffee/water, and repeat until all the ingredients are combined.
8. Fold in the chocolate chips.
9. Pour the mixture into the cake pan and place in the oven. Cook for 25-30 mins until a tooth pick comes out clean.
10. Leave to completely cool on a cake rack.
11. Mix all the ingredients for the frosting in a bowl with a spatula or hand mixer.
12. Use a spatula or spoon to spread the frosting on the cake.
13. Eat!

Now as I said above, this is a very dark recipe. We could only eat a small piece at a time, which was perfect 💖 and it goes really well with a nice coffee or tea. If you like cake less dark, I would suggest a lighter chocolate frosting, or even a vanilla one. The original recipe suggest chocolate ganache, but a butter cream would work too.

Because the frosting is yoghurt based, you will need to keep this cake in the fridge, and believe me, it improves with age too. It can be kept up to a week.

Alternative Frosting
Coffee Buttercream

This is enough to do a 9inch cake or 6 cup cakes.

• 125g (approx 1 stick) butter at room temp
• 250g icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
• a splash of vanilla extract
• 1.5 tsp instant coffee
• 0.5 tbsp boiling water

1. In a ramekin or similar, mix the coffee and boiling water and leave aside so it can cool down.
2. Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, whisk the butter in a large bowl until it is light and fluffy - this can take up to 5 min.
3. Add the icing sugar slowly and whisk in each batch until combined and the mixture is smooth. Take time to prevent the mixture being grainy.
4. Add the vanilla and coffee and whisk one more time to combine.

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