Healthy Green Velvet Cake
This Healthy Green Velvet Cake tastes exactly like Red Velvet Cake, only it’s GREEN! It’s super moist, flavorful, and delicious, you’d never know it’s sugar free, low fat, high fiber, and gluten free too.
This is the perfect green Saint Patrick’s Day dessert!
To make this cake, boy oh boy… lemme just say it took A LOT of trial and error. A lot, a lot. *palm to forehead*
Oh, and a ton of spinach lol.
I thought I could copy the Red Velvet Cake recipe from my Naughty or Nice Cookbook, and simply swap a few ingredients to make it green (like the little shortcut/cheater I am), but nope! Exactly five batches in a row turned to complete crap. Well, they weren’t a total waste because they still tasted good, but they were all a horrible greenish brown color. Like green smoothie meets muddy swamp. It’s safe to say none of those recipes will ever be repeated or shared on this blog 😉
I made subtle changes to the recipe over the course of five baking trials. FIVE! By the last trial, the only ingredients that remained the same in quantity were the oat flour, baking powder, and almond milk! Here are some of the changes I made:
- swapped brown rice flour with sorghum flour
- used whole eggs instead of egg whites
- used a mix of spinach + applesauce to replace the beets**
- increased starch by a few tablespoons
- increased salt by ¼ tsp
- decreased erythritol by ¼ cup
- decreased cocoa powder by 2 tbs
- decreased oil by 5 tbs
- omitted cacao butter
- omitted vinegar
**For 4 trials I used fresh spinach. Then I realized, the color in frozen spinach is way more vibrant, so I tried that and it worked! Magic!
I ain’t complaining that I had to eat 4 “failed” batches of cake because they sure tasted good and were healthy enough for breakfast, but dang, am I glad all that recipe testing is over.
This Green Velvet Cake has a beautiful, naturally green hue. No need for the artificial food coloring!
Best of all, it’s good for you. Made with whole grains and zero added sugar, this is a treat you can feel good about eating.
Healthy Green Velvet Cake
Ingredients
- 3 Large Eggs
- 96g (½ cup) Granulated Erythritol
- 1 tbs Avocado Oil (or any other neutral oil)
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Vanilla Crème-Flavored Stevia Extract
- 200g (2 cups) Frozen Spinach (mostly thawed)
- 185g (¾ cup) Unsweetened Applesauce
- ½ cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 10g (2 tbs) Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
- 25 drops Natural Yellow Food Coloring
- 120g (1 cup) Oat Flour
- 102g (¾ cup) Sweet White Sorghum Flour
- 53g (⅓ cup) Organic Corn Starch
- 2 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and generously spray two 8" cake pans with cooking spray. I also lined my pans with parchment paper circles.
- In a stand mixer bowl with beater attachment, add the eggs, erythritol, oil, vanilla extract, and stevia extract.
- In a small blender, add the spinach, applesauce, almond milk, cocoa powder, and food coloring. Blend until smooth.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the oat flour, sorghum flour, corn starch, baking powder, and salt.
- Turn the mixer on low and pour in the blender mixture. Increase the mixer speed to medium and slowly add in the dry ingredients. When all is incorporated, whip batter on medium-high speed for 20 seconds (batter should be thin and pourable).
- Pour batter in the prepared pans and bake for ~25 minutes, or until the surface is round and springs back when tapped. Let cakes cool in the pan for ~20 minutes, then flip onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Frost the next day with your frosting of choice, then serve and enjoy!
I frosted my cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, but you can use whatever kind you like!
Enjoy 🙂
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
Looks delish! I love me some festive desserts 🙂 I will definitely have to try this soon!
Jessica, this cake looks fantastic! Beautiful photography!
i wish it was still st. patrick’s day – i’d love a green slice of cake…am in love with your site – so glad you were featured on foodbuzz today so i could find it.
Do you think ener-g egg replacer would work for the egg whites? I’d love to try!
I haven’t tried it so I’m not sure… If you try the recipe out, the 3/4 cup of egg whites should be equivalent to 3 tbs ener-g + 3/4 cup water. Good luck!
Nice recipe, but I resent the idea that I should feel guilty for eating “normal” cake made with sugar and butter instead if chemicals and fancy flour.
Hey Mags,
Everything is fine in moderation, even cake, but if we can save our bodies from a massive blood sugar spike from consuming 1/3 cup of sugar in one sitting, I think we should. This cake recipe is all natural and isn’t made with fancy flour, it’s regular whole grain flour… we have just become so accustomed to refined, high-glycemic flour these days. Bleached flour and white sugar is the stuff made with dangerous chemicals.
I I made this cake today, mine turned brown, and the icing was very soupy. I guess ill just have to try again!
Hi Kate, sorry the recipe didn’t work out for you, did you make any changes to the recipe? I have made this cake twice without any changes in color and have made the frosting probably a dozen times without it being soupy…
You are a gutsy gal! I’m gonna try it. How do you have the patience to be so bold and try these things? Must be a gift!
Saw your amazing cake on the Yahoo page (we’re neighbours on there!) – the colour is amazing and as a spinach fan I’ll have to try this! Can you tast the spinach much?
Laura @ Me & Mr Jones-
Thanks! What an interesting post, I never would’ve thought to make some of those veggie recipes!
As for the cake, you can’t taste the spinach at all. Which is great, because that would be gross haha. I hate the taste of spinach yet I love that cake… the cocoa powder, extracts and frosting overpower the spinach flavor 🙂
-Jess
Denise Walker-
I’ve made this cake multiple times before so I think the recipe is legit… though, I must say, baking can just do that sometimes!
You said you followed the recipe exactly, but just making sure, did you use the Natures Flavors food coloring? Natural food colorings are very specific. This recipe is over a year old and the links I provided for the food coloring are no longer useful, the website had a makeover and I can’t seem to find the exact product I used.
I have no idea why the cake was hard though. Just wondering, do you use an oven thermometer? Ovens are notorious for having wacky temperatures!
I also don’t know why the cake would be bitter. If you used a different brand of stevia than the one linked to in the recipe, that could be it. I only use SweetLeaf and NuNaturals.
Anyways, sorry about the bad turnout. I hope you get to try out another recipe of mine and get better results! 🙂
-Jess
Is the food coloring really necessary…i ask because the reviews for the link u provided for the natural food cploring has many negative reviews in that most customers gets a bad poduct. Have u tried other brands? Thank you…for the spinach how many grams? I know u say packed spinach but not sure if there can be a guve if i packed it a little more or less than what u did.
Hmmm… I’ve been using India Tree food coloring for years. My only complaint is that you need a lot of red coloring to dye a red velvet cake, and the bottles are small. But this recipe doesn’t call for green, just yellow. You could honestly probably try using turmeric instead, or just use more spinach? It might not be a necessary ingredient.
I didn’t weigh the spinach, but if you omit the food coloring I’d recommend using 1 packed cup. I’m GUESSING that’s around 30-40g? Crossing my fingers it turns out for ya!!
Can you sub the spinach with another green veggie? Can you sub cornstarch? We can’t do either
You can try frozen kale I suppose, but I haven’t tested that out. You can substitute the corn starch with arrowroot starch!
OMG! What a beautifully green cake! Now, I definitely have to try out that suggestion with the Ener-G egg replacer to make this cake vegan. Because as someone who follows a plant-centric diet, yes, I want to have my healthy cake and to eat it too.
I haven’t tried replacing the eggs here but it’s worth a shot!! 🙂
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