A healthy alternative for a baby’s first taste of cake is Chocolate Black Bean Cake!
While, my sweet Hayden didn’t appreciate the icing on the cake, he loved the cake part! Lucky for us grown ups, he didn’t touch the cake, so we sliced it and ate it ourselves! Everyone LOVED it! It’s, hands down, our favorite chocolate cake recipe.
If you’re looking for a non-chocolate cake, I made a healthy carrot smash cake for Liam that you can also make!
Also, I posted all of his first birthday photos here!
Chocolate Black Bean Cake Smash Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 (15.5 oz) can of no salt added BPA free black beans, drained and rinsed
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons refined coconut oil (or softened butter)
- 3/4 cup organic cane sugar
- 5 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
How-To
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line the bottom of three 6 inch cake pans with parchment paper circles and spray with cooking spray.
- Blend the beans, eggs, vanilla, coconut oil/butter, sugar and cocoa powder in a blender on high until completely blended.
- Add in the baking powder and baking soda and blend until combined.
- Pour about 0.5 pounds of batter into each pan.
- Bake for 18-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Flip the cakes onto cooling racks and cool completely.
- Frost and decorate as desired.
Note: I used this cream cheese frosting to ice this cake.
Servings: one 6 inch three layer cake
I made a black bean cake of yours years ago and it was so good. I bet this was amazing, Hayden missed out;-)
Where was this recipe when I needed a cake for Quinn?? 🙂 Might have to make a Valentines Day cake with this recipe.
Thanks for this recipe! I tried the link for the healthy carrot cake alternative but the link didn’t connect. Would you mind checking/reposting it? Thanks!
You’re correct, the link is currently broken. Here’s the recipe until it’s fixed. Happy Baking!
Whole Grain Carrot Smash Cake
adapted from Nuture Baby
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (plus extra for dusting the pan)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup brown sugar
2 large organic eggs
2 small-medium apples, peeled and diced
1 cup canola oil/coconut oil/butter
5 small-medium carrots, washed, stems cut off, and cut into small chunks
1/2 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(frosting) 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
(frosting) 1/2 cup plain full-fat Greek yogurt
(frosting) 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
(frosting) 6 cups powdered sugar
How-To
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray three 6-inch round cake pans with canola oil and dust with all-purpose flour, discarding any extra flour.
In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer with the beater attachment, beat the brown sugar and eggs until foamy and thoroughly beaten.
Meanwhile, in your blender (I use a Blendtec) or food processor, purée the apple slices and canola oil together. Pour into the beaten eggs/sugar of your stand mixer.
Next, purée the carrots and orange juice together. Pour into the beaten eggs/sugar mixture of your stand mixer.
Add in the vanilla extract to your stand mixer and beat on low until all of the wet ingredients are combined.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients of your stand mixer and stir until just combined.
Equally separate out into your cake pans (about 1 1/2 cups of batter per pan).
Bake for 20-30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool for a few minutes in the pan before flipping out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, to assemble your icing, beat butter, yogurt and vanilla extract together until combined. Add in the powdered sugar until combined.
Assemble the cake and decorate as desired.
Note: I only had one cake pan, so I evenly poured the batter into three bowls and baked them one at a time.