Cake pops are one of my favorite recent food trends, not because I think they taste all that much better than regular old cake, but because once and a while we all make that cake that doesn’t rise or come out just how we planned and won’t serve to people but can’t bear to throw away.

That’s the beauty of cake pops: They’re very forgiving. You can start out with dry or crumbly cake and still come out with something delicious.

Chobani sent me a few of their 32oz yogurt containers for their Just Add Good cooking campaign. They’ve added a new Kitchen page to their website full of yogurt recipes and beautiful photos to get your gears turning.

When I made these cake balls, I swapped out the oil in the cake recipe for an equal amount vanilla Greek yogurt. For the frosting I mixed the cake with, I swapped out the butter for 1/2 the amount called for of plain 2% greek yogurt. The result was just as moist and delicious as any cake ball I’ve made before.

Since you lose richness when you cut the fat out of a recipe, this works better with bitter or spicy cake flavors like chocolate, pumpkin, or carrot cake. I used a gluten-free pumpkin spice cake with a white chocolate coating. 

Don’t forget when melting chocolate to look for baking chocolate instead of chocolate chips. Baking chocolate melts smoother and makes a better coating for the cake pops.

I saw a lot of carrot cake recipes last week leading up to Easter while I was planning to make one for yesterday, too. I’d forgotten it’s sort of an Eastery dessert. Easter is also the time I celebrate my birthday with my extended family and carrot cake has always been one of my favorite cakes. It’s kind of an odd choice(or so I’m told), but I love it. I even asked to have it as my graduation cake after 6th grade when everyone else was choosing chocolate and chocolate fudge; it’s their loss.

I haven’t had carrot cake since eating gluten-free a few years ago and have been meaning to make this for months. Of course, when I did decide to make it things started going wrong. I realized Friday night I only had one cake pan, so a layer cake was out. I also didn’t have a grater so I had to peel and chop the carrots. I completely forgot to add the pineapple I bought just for this, and as I went to add in the walnuts I remembered my aunt’s allergic to walnuts, so I swapped in some pecans at the last minute. Still, this was one of the best carrot cakes I’ve ever had.  

This recipe makes one cake layer. You can double it to make more for a layered cake. To make the cake dairy-free, use a vegan cream cheese substitute. I’d recommend something organic since vegan cream cheeses tend to have odd ingredients.

Gluten-Free Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts(or any other nut)
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 4 eggs
• 6 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• 8oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 Tablespoons milk or cream

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix together the carrots, raisins, walnuts, coconut, almond flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. Mix in the maple syrup, eggs, and coconut oil until the batter is even.
4. Pour the batter into a 12-inch cake pan and spread out evenly.
5. Bake for 40 minutes until the cake rises and the center has cooked through.
6. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before frosting.
7. To make the frosting, sift the powdered sugar into a bowl with the cream cheese.
8. Add in the extract and milk and beat until completely mixed.
9. Spread on top and around the sides of the cake.
10. Garnish with extra nuts if desired.

I’ll always have a soft spot(and empty stomach) for carrot cake. Since there are vegetables and fruit in this I’m going to go ahead and say it’s fine to eat the leftovers for breakfast, too.

This recipe comes almost 4 months in the making. I needed a lot of time and a big celebration to make it for so New Years fit the bill. It’s also my submission for the Scharffen Berger elevated classic recipe contest.

The point of the contest is to take a classic dessert and elevate it with chocolate. My favorite chocolate dessert has always been flourless chocolate cake, which has been made in my family for years with the same recipe. It’s certainly a good recipe, but not the best.

To elevate it, I added a raspberry fudge sauce and topped the whole thing with a coconut milk mousse, all made with Scharffen Berger chocolate. I love the combination of the dense cake with the airy mousse and the tartness of the raspberries between the two sweet layers. Technically it was probably one of the hardest desserts I’ve made; I’ve never successfully separated and tempered yolks before now. Needless to say I was very happy on New Years Eve when the cake turned out as well as I planned.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Fudge Sauce and Coconut Milk Chocolate Mousse

For the cake:

• 4oz room temperature butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 medium room temperature eggs
• 1 9.7oz 70% Scharffen Berger baking chocolate

For the sauce:

• 8oz raspberries
• 2oz 62% Scharffen Berger baking chocolate
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 Tablespoons Scharffen Berger unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tablespoons liquid sweetener

For the mousse:

• 3/4 cup coconut cream*
• 1/4 coconut water*
• 6oz 62% Scharffen Berger chocolate
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

*To get coconut cream, leave a can of coconut milk undisturbed for a week or so. When you open it, the water should have separated from the thicker part, the cream. Just be careful not to mix the two together and you should be able to scrape the cream off the top easily.

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar, adding in eggs one at a time until all of them are incorporated. The batter should be smooth and ribbony.
3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave.
4. Slowly temper the melted chocolate into the batter until it’s completely mixed in.
5. Grease a 9-inch cake pan and pour the batter in.
6. Bake for 40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Remove the cake and let it sit undisturbed until it cools to room temperature. It should deflate as it cools. Don’t worry if the top cracks since it will get covered eventually.
8. While the cake cools, make the sauce by bringing all of the ingredients together to a boil in a small sauce pot.
9. Mix the contents of the pot until the chocolate has melted and the sauce is uniform in color.
10. Pour the sauce over the cake. Let it cool completely and then refrigerate to chill.
11. While the sauce sets, make the mousse by bringing to a light boil the coconut cream and water in a sauce pot. Chop the chocolate and add it in, mixing off of the heat until the chocolate has melted.
12. Beat together the 3 egg yolks. Temper them by adding a little of the chocolate coconut mixture in as you beat. Once the yolks have been tempered you can mix them into the pot along with the salt. Keep the pot off of the heat stirring occasionally to prevent fit rom getting a film.
13. Beat the egg whites while sifting in the powdered sugar until light peaks form like you’re making a meringue.
14. Carefully fold the egg whites and chocolate coconut mixture together in a large bowl until it’s all mixed. Be careful not to over-mix the mousse and deflate the egg whites; fold just enough until it’s all the same color.
15. Put the mousse into the refrigerator until it’s set, about 3-4 hours.
16. Once the mousse has set, carefully scoop it on top of the cake. Spread it out into one layer as if it were a frosting. Using a piece of saran wrap to push down for a flat surface is an easy way to do this.
17. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Remove from the refrigerator for about 15 minutes before cutting and eating.

It was a lot of work but completely worth it. Everybody loved the cake. And I think the mousse would be a great and impressive dessert to make on its own for another occasion.

Saturday night we had a special dinner with family friends. For one weekend all 8 of us were around before starting vacations and school again; one of is even spending a year studying at Oxford(no, it’s not me; yes, I’m jealous). That called for cake. I had been wanting to make this recipe for a while and wanted to wait until just the right celebration. Everyone loved it, although when I told them the frosting involved avocado you would have thought I told them my own hair was in it. They started eating it again 2 seconds later when they remembered how good it was and decided you couldn’t taste the avocado.

I actually made this cake for Father’s Day last year and featured it as a guest post on Gena’s blog. Since then I’d completely forgotten about it and had to go look it up to remember how to make it. Now that I remembered, I kind of wish I could forget again. The ones that we didn’t give away didn’t last long in this house. It’s hard to say no to a piece of cake, and even harder when you can tell yourself it’s “healthy” because it has fruits and nuts in it.

Hazelnut Chocolate Cake {Raw/Vegan}

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 0 minutes

Ingredients(makes 5 2×3-inch frosted cakes):

• 2 cups hazelnuts
• 1 cup pitted dates
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder, divided
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
• 1 medium avocado
• Crushed hazelnuts for garnish

Method:

1. Pulse the hazelnuts in a food processor until finely ground into a flour
2. Add in the dates, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, and 1/4 cup maple syrup and process until it forms into a thick dough that sticks together.
3. Lay the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to about 3/4-inch thickness.
4. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into either 8 or 10 equal sized rectangles. If there’s excess dough you can form it into a ball, roll it out, and cut again.
5. Make the frosting by blending together the remaining maple syrup, cocoa powder, and the meat from the avocado until it’s uniform in color and texture. Taste it and adjust the sweetness if need be.
6. Spread about 2 tablespoons of frosting over half of the cakes. Layer with another slice and spread an equal amount of frosting on top of that piece.
7. Garnish with crushed hazelnuts.

These took from start to finish about 20 minutes to make, maybe a little more than that because I was distracted. Even so these are much quicker to make than traditional cake and certainly have all the show-stopping qualities.