This Banana Cocoa Cake with Almond Butter Swirl will satisfy your chocolate cravings without breaking your diet. This cake is Paleo, gluten-free, sweetened almost entirely with bananas, and healthy enough for breakfast!
Happy New Year, internet friends! Can you believe it’s 2015? I hope the first few days of the New Year have been treating you right.
Unfortunately, my first few days of the year I’ve been stuck on the couch trying to fight off a monster of a cold/flu combo. Not fun. I’m on my couch bundled in blankets right now, so I’m not gonna type your ear off, but rather, tell you about this delicious cake and get back to recovering so I can bake up more treats to share!
This Banana Cocoa Cake is easy to throw together, and marries together a bunch of my favorite flavors. Chocolate, banana, and almond butter? Yes please!
This cake is less of a celebration cake, and more a snack cake – one that’s totally healthy enough to enjoy for breakfast! It’s sweetened mostly with bananas (so make sure they’re ripe!), with just a bit of honey to balance out the cocoa. The bananas add lots of sweetness and moisture, and who doesn’t love chocolate and banana together?!
The combo of flours in this cake is one of my favorites for Paleo desserts – I love how the combination of almond flour, tapioca flour, and coconut flour makes a light and fluffy cake that’s barely distinguishable from gluten-filled counterparts.
I also added a swirl of almond butter on top of this cake. I adore the way that it looks swirled onto the cake, and it tastes delicious with the chocolate and banana. If you’re not Paleo, peanut butter would be delicious here as well!
Again, happy 2015 everyone, and I hope your year is off to a sweet start :) enjoy!
Banana Cocoa Snack Cake (Paleo)
Ingredients
- 2 large ripe bananas, ~250g, mashed
- 2 tablespoons 30g coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoons 30g honey
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup almond milk
- 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (63g) almond flour
- 1/4 cup 28g coconut flour
- 1/4 cup 25g tapioca flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 4 oz. dark chocolate, chopped (optional, omit for strict paleo)
- 1/4 cup almond butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease an 8" or 9" round baking pan with coconut oil.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, honey, eggs, milk, mashed bananas, and vanilla.
- Stir in the almond flour, coconut flour, tapioca flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Fold in chocolate chunks if using.
- Spread batter in prepared pan and dollop almond butter on top. You may want to warm the almond butter slightly in the microwave so it's a thinner consistency. Swirl almond butter into the batter.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool completely before serving.
The almond butter swirl looks amazing and I love the bits of chocolate in the cake. Happy new year!
Oh yum – a snack cake sounds totally up my alley, and I’m with you – LOVE these flavors together! Can’t wait to try this!
Happy new year! I am a huge fan of this combination of flours too, and it’s clear from the texture of this cake how well it works! I hope you’re feeling better and making up for a rough start to the year!
Oh man – so sorry to hear that you’re sick! I hope you’re mostly recovered by now! My whole family came down with terrible colds right after Christmas and fortunately I escaped unscathed. I love that you made this cake paleo – I’ve still never baked with coconut flour, but I’m going to make that my first new year’s resolution!
Happy New Year Rachel! Oh no, so sorry to hear you’re sick! Get well soon and send more delicious recipes involving chocolate and bananas our way :) Looks amazing!
Oh wow! This looks amazing….and erm, guilt free right!?
Cake that’s healthy enough for breakfast AND includes chocolate, bananas, and almond butter? (3 of my all-time favorite things?) It’s like a dream come true!! I just want to snatch a piece straight off the computer screen! Pinned! :) Feel better soon!!
Thank you so much, Amy!!
Did you just give me permission to eat cake for breakfast?! Awesome! This cake looks beyond amazing and perfectly moist and light! Pinned!
It looks very good. I like to eat banana cake.
I like it very much.
Ahhh I have almost everything needed to make this NOW, I love banana and almond butter and this swirly cake takes two of my favourite things and makes them even better. Gorgeous, definitely trying this cake soon.