Healthier chocolate fudge cake!

So exams are a week away and here I am, calmly munching on my porridge, ready for a Max Fitness cardio session at the gym in a bit. For some reason, the stress and exam period 'craziness' hasn't kicked in this time round. It is crazy and somewhat scary to think about the fact that these will be my last ever exams at University. The three years of studying for my undergraduate degree have gone by way too quickly, I still remember my first day in Manchester, carrying my two massive suitcases up to my tiny room in halls with my mum!, discovering all the great eateries and meeting people from all over the world! These have definitely been the best years so far and although it is quite sad that my adventures as a student are coming to an end, I am so excited to start this new chapter of my working life and what better place to kick start my career than in Manchester itself!

Anyways, enough rambling on and now to the recipe! When exams approach and it is time to get serious with revision, everything else around us happens to seem way more interesting and most students manage to procrastinate in some way or another! For me, there isn't a more appropriate time to bake! For some reason I just start thinking about so many flavour combinations, twists on recipes and get such urges to get to the kitchen! So as the baking cravings started to kick in, Facebook notified me about our gym instructor's birthday, what better excuse to try and make a healthy chocolate birthday cake! I played around with what I had in the kitchen, I used half whole wheat and half white flour but I would definitely try to use a substitute such as oat/ coconut flour next time round. The texture of the cake is very soft and gooey in the middle and I think that the layered strawberries helps to take away from the 'dense-ness' of the cake.

CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE

• 120 g flour of choice: I used half whole-wheat, half plain flour
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 large ripe banana
• 20 g cocoa
• 50 g honey or any sweetener
• 1 egg
• 35 g coconut oil or olive oil
• About 40 ml of milk

1. Mash up the banana until smooth. Add in the sweetener of choice, egg and oil.
2. Fold in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cocoa until the batter is smooth  and lump-free. Slowly incorporate in the milk until you obtain a smooth 'cake batter' texture. 
3. Pour the mixture into prepared cake tins (greased and floured), I used 3 mini loaf pans so if using one big pan, adjust baking time respectively.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 170 degrees Celsius for roughly 20 minutes until well risen and a toothpick comes out clean.

FUDGE FILLING & TOPPING

• Roughly 120 g pitted dates
• 1.5 tsp coconut oil 
• 2 heaped tsp cocoa
• Pinch of salt 

1. Soak the dates in a little warm water for a couple of minutes until softened.
2. Drain the dates, keeping the water aside to use later on.
3. Add the cocoa, salt and coconut oil to the dates and blend up. 
4. Slowly add in a little of the date water as you blend it up to create a smooth textured filling. I used about 6 teaspoons of the water.

Assemble the cake as desired. I used two layers of cake with some sliced strawberries and date filling in between them. For the top I covered the cake in a thick layer of the date topping followed by a layer of fresh berries and nuts. And to top it off, I drizzled on a little white chocolate.

Xx

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