Homemade Skinny Chocolate Cake
For the chocolate lovers, you might also like this Flourless Chocolate Cake or these PB2 Flourless Brownies.
I’ve been experimenting making a cake from scratch with less fat for a few days now and after a few rounds I finally got it to where my taste testers (aka husband and friends) all thought it was great and couldn’t believe it was light.
My secret? There’s pudding, yogurt and applesauce in the mix!
This recipe was created for those of you who like to make their cakes from scratch, but if you prefer a quicker method by using a box cake mix as an ingredient, see my Super Moist Low Fat Chocolate Cupcake recipe.
This cake rises beautifully and the coffee brings out the flavor of the chocolate. Will it work without the pudding? Yes, however the texture will change and you’ll need to increase the sugar. Can you use less oil? Yes, but I’ve already cut out more than half, and using less will work, but the texture will be drier.
I made this in a 13 x 9-inch pan and used a heart cookie cutter to cut out hearts, but you can make this into 24 cupcakes, a bundt cake or 2 rounds. Hope you enjoy!
Homemade Skinny Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 tbsp canola oil
- 4 oz unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 egg
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup HOT coffee
- 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup fat free milk
- 2 cups cake flour, not self rising
- 1 package instant chocolate pudding, not sugar free
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
- spray oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Lightly spray and flour your cake pan.
- In a large bowl combine flour, dry chocolate pudding mix, salt, baking powder and baking soda and set aside. (dry ingredients)
- In a medium bowl, combine HOT coffee with the cocoa powder until it dissolves. Slowly add milk and vanilla extract. Set aside. (wet ingredients)
- In a stand mixer on low speed combine the sugar and oil; mix to combine well.
- Add the applesauce until mixed through. Then add eggs and egg whites until incorporated.
- Starting with the dry ingredients, slowly add a little of the dry, then a little of the wet ingredients, alternating between wet and dry until all the ingredients are mixed in.
- Last step is to add the Greek yogurt and just stir to combine.
- Pour into the cake pan and transfer to oven.
- Depending on the pan you use, (I used a 13 x 9-inch pan) bake for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cupcakes will be closer to 25-30 minutes.
Absolutely love this cake. Everytime I make it, everyone raves about it. It has become my chocolate cake recipe anytime I make a chocolate cake. So incredibly good. For frosting I’ve used the 1 minute chocolate frosting and it works perfectly.
This cake is great for a healthier version of chocolate cake! We tried it with just melted sugar free chocolate chips on top, but we were really missing the frosting. So I made some of skinnytaste’s cream cheese frosting. I added some melted sugar free chocolate chips to the frosting to make chocolate cream cheese frosting! I love it with this cake!Â
This cakes is awesome!  It reminds me of the famous Costco chocolate cake!  I placed what we didn’t eat it in the refrigerator and it was even better the next day!  Thanks so much for the great recipes!  I also love the super moist carrot cake and zucchini bread recipes.  Make them all the time and now this will be a family staple as well!💕