The perfect THM low carb chocolate snack cake. A recipe devoted to all of my Trim Healthy Mama readers! It’s easy, too.
I have readers from all walks of life, from all sorts of backgrounds and upbringings and countries. I am truly fascinated by the diversity of my readership. Mind you, the vast majority of you are women from Western countries, between the ages of 25 and 60. I am sure I could make plenty of generalizations about the people who manage to find and follow this blog. But they all come here for their own personal reasons and with their own unique experiences. And I think that speaks volumes about the increasing growth and recognition of low carb living as a healthy alternative to the Standard American Diet.
This recipe is actually written for a particular subset of my readership. That is not to say that it’s not appropriate for anyone on a low carb diet, because it most certainly is. And that is not to say that it is not delicious for anyone, no matter what diet, because it most certainly is. It’s just that this particular recipe was developed for those that follow Trim Healthy Mama and like to use the Trim Healthy Mama products like the Baking Blend, the Sweet Blend, and the Gentle Sweet. I have many wonderful followers from THM and they are often asking me how to use and/or substitute those things in my recipes. So I felt duty-bound to play with these ingredients and see what I could come up with.
I also wanted to make an easy low carb chocolate snack cake that would appeal to kids and adults alike. I had the Sara Lee snack cake in my head as a model. You know the one the one, that single-layer chocolate cake the chocolate frosting piped on in pretty star shapes? It’s typically found in the freezer aisle and is full of all sorts of junk, but people love it. I love the idea of “snack cake”, something that’s simple enough and healthy enough to offer to kids when they come home from school or to any unexpected guests that drop by. But a cake that can also be special enough to double as dessert if necessary. That’s the kind of cake I wanted to make.
And this definitely fit the bill, although I do ask you to not look too closely at my piping of the frosting. I am not particularly talented in that area and although I followed the instructions on Wilton for a “star fill in” decorating technique, I had plenty of little gaps between my stars that needed re-filling in with additional blobs of frosting. I am sure some of you could do much better!
For those of you who have yet to try the THM products, you can check them out here on the THM Store. The baking blend is a useful low carb flour alternative that is meant to measure exactly like flour. And the Sweet Blend is a combination of erythritol and stevia that is typically twice as sweet as sugar. There are many other useful low carb ingredients such as gluccomannan, gelatin, whey protein, peanut flour, stevia, and xylitol. It’s definitely worth a look!
THM Chocolate Snack Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 1/2 cups THM Baking Blend
- 2/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup THM Sweet Blend (depending on how sweet you like it)
- 1/4 cup unflavoured whey protein powder
- 1 tbsp instant coffee granules (optional, helps boost chocolate flavour)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup butter melted
- 3/4 to 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (if your batter is overly thick, add a little more almond milk)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Frosting:
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate chopped
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened
- 6 tbsp butter softened
- 1/4 cup THM Sweet Blend powdered, if possible
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325F and grease a 9x9 inch square baking pan (you can also use 8x8 inches, but your cake will take a little longer to bake).
- In a large bowl, whisk together the Baking Blend, cocoa powder, Sweet Blend, protein powder, instant coffee, baking powder, and salt.
- Stir in eggs, melted butter, almond milk, and vanilla until well combined. Spread in prepared baking pan.
- Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until cake is set and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely.
Frosting:
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring cream to just a simmer. Remove from heat and add chopped chocolate. Let sit 5 minutes and then whisk until smooth. Let cool to lukewarm.
- In a large bowl beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in sweetener, cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Add chocolate mixture and beat until well combined, scraping down beaters and sides of bowl as needed.
- Spread or pipe onto cooled cake.
Notes
Total fat: 18.50g
Calories from fat: 166
Cholesterol: 80mg
Carbohydrate: 9.18g
Total dietary fiber: 5.96g
Protein: 6.60g
