Healthy sugarless and gluten free chocolate cake

As the hard work towards the perfect bikini body has begun, cakes and treats seem to be something many can only dream of.

The latest diet trend involves making healthier versions of classic all time favourites. Keeping up with massive birthday cakes and Saturday night snacks but swapping sugar for healthier goodies. Why not?

Whole Foods has become a temple for food lovers and for many, quality overcomes price. More and more people are testing clean eating, labelling sugar as the villain.

While sugar and flour is often the base in most cakes, this healthy chocolate brownie-style cake consists only of incredible ingredients that will leave anyone feeling happy and satisfied.

Not only is this cake easy to make, it will also make being healthy a little bit more interesting.

Ingredients:

300 g pitless dates

200 almonds (about 125 g)

4-5 tablespoons of raw cocoa powder (depending on how bitter you want it)

75 g melted coconut oil

2 ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 eggs

75 g melted dark chocolate (70-85%)

Pinch of salt

Chopped hazelnuts for decoration on top

Optional: add a bit of honey and/or cinnamon to add extra sweetness

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.

2. Put all the ingredients in a food processor or bowl and mix with a hand blender until it becomes a smooth, even consistency. If the dates are very hard, soak them in water for 10-15 minutes beforehand to allow them to become soft and easier to blend.

3. Prepare the baking tin (any spring form will do) by lining it with parchment paper.

4. Pour in the cake batter and spread it evenly. Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

The cake might look under-baked when it’s still warm, but leave it to cool and keep in the fridge and it will feel and taste like a fudge brownie full of sugar.

The cake can keep for two days in the fridge, but probably won’t last longer than two hours in most student homes.

Even though this cake contains a lot of healthy goodness, it is still very calorie heavy so you should not eat the whole cake straight away, but the perks with natural sugars is that it fills you up and leaves you satisfied.

Try it – rumour has it, it is better than the really sugary fudged brownies.

Tip: The cake batter can be baked in muffin cases and is suitable for freezing for those troubled times when cravings hit the hardest.