Mocha Cake {And My 19th Birthday}

Mousse updated 3/21/16

I have an announcement to make, people!  I have an e-book in the works to be published in the next couple of days (provided that everything goes smoothly)!  I was originally going to do a largish e-book with a bunch of easy homestyle cooking recipes.  That one’s still coming, but then I realized I had a bunch of soup ideas just waiting to be made, so I decided to get my feet wet with a smaller e-book first.  Therefore, sometime very soon you will (hopefully) see an e-book with about a dozen cozy soup recipes ready for purchase here on my website (including an amazing clam chowder recipe that I just perfected yesterday…mmm).  Be sure to subscribe via e-mail in the sidebar to your right and/or like my Facebook page to get updates!  Now on to business…

*Update* It’s published!  Visit the 12 Cozy Soups Ebook page to get details and order.

The perfect chocolate cake + fudgy chocolate frosting + mocha mousse + vanilla ice cream = a THM rendition of a family tradition: the mocha cake.

The special occasion that deserved such a masterpiece?  Ta-da!  My 19th birthday!  My mom thought there was something wrong with my making my own birthday cake, but I told her to just enjoy the break.  She fixed us a wonderful supper: marinated grilled deer steaks, steamed broccoli, roasted zucchini with parmesan, and cabbage sautéed in buttah.  It actually wasn’t a very heavy meal, which was good because the cake was quite filling.

I’m really tickled with this cake.  It’s the best THM cake I’ve ever made.  I know I said that about the zucchini spice cake, but this is CHOCOLATE, y’all!  And with vanilla ice cream it tasted like a normal ending to a birthday party.  You people who bake with alternative sweeteners and flours know what a triumph the word “normal” is.

I’ve made chocolate cake before, but it had an interesting ingredient that made it fudgy and denser than regular chocolate cake.  This cake has sane ingredients and a fluffier texture (although it’s still denser than cakes made with white flour and sugar).  You can read more details about it here in its own special post I made for it.  You can click that link to print the chocolate cake recipe off by itself, if you like.

I’ve also made chocolate frosting before, but this is a lightened-up version.  You can read more details about it here…it got its own post too so you can print it on its own as well.

This mocha cake includes two chocolate layers, chocolate frosting, and a mocha mousse between the cake layers.

Serve this cake with vanilla ice cream for the full experience.

You can snag my “official” pin for this recipe here.

You can find a cleaned-up version of this recipe in my cookbook, Necessary Food.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Mocha Cake

 

Author:

Briana Thomas

Serves: 12 servings

Print

 

Low-carb. Sugar-free, THM:S - This cake is best when it can be refrigerated for the majority of a day (or overnight) before eating. See Notes section below for an option using Briana's Baking Mix.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 cups frozen grated zucchini, thawed, juice and all (measure before freezing; see note below if using fresh zucchini)
• 3 eggs
• ¼ cup refined coconut oil or butter, melted/softened
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ cup oat fiber (use gluten free if necessary)
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• ⅔ cup oat flour (oats ground finely in a blender/coffee grinder; use gluten free if necessary)
• ⅓ cup ground golden flax
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. + 2 doonks THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder (a doonk is 1/32 tsp.)
• 4 packets Truvia (3 tsp. Truvia; you could also use 2 tsp. THM Super Sweet Blend), or more to taste since I tend to undersweeten

For the mocha mousse:

• 6 oz. reduced fat cream cheese
• 1 T cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. instant coffee granules (or more, to taste)
• 1½ tsp. THM Super Sweet Blend
• ¼ tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ cup heavy whipping cream

For the chocolate frosting:

• 1 stick salted butter, softened
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• 3 doonks THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder (a doonk is 1/32 tsp.)
• 3 Truvia packets, ground in a coffee grinder (2¼ tsp. Truvia; you could also use half that of THM Super Sweet Blend)
• ½ tsp. vanilla extract
• ⅓ cup unsweetened almond milk
• ⅓ cup cottage cheese
• ¼ cup refined coconut oil, softened

Instructions

1. Cake instructions: Mix all the wet ingredients together well. Whisk the dry ingredients together, add to the wet ingredients, and mix until well combined. Divide the batter into two well-greased 9-inch cake pans and smooth out with a spatula. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly. Let the cakes sit in the pans for 10 minutes, then cut around the edges with a knife and carefully invert them (use your hand to support the cake from underneath and gently tap on the pan to get the cake to loosen if it sticks) onto a towel-covered wire rack to cool. Refrigerate the cake layers until completely chilled through, then make the mocha mousse.
2. Mousse directions: Beat all the ingredients except for the cream until smooth. Add the cream and beat until thick and creamy. Place one of the completely chilled cake layers on a cake stand and spread the mousse evenly on top. Refrigerate until the mousse is mostly firm. Top with the second cake layer. Refrigerate until you are ready to frost the cake.
3. Frosting directions: In a stand mixer (a good hand mixer would probably work as well), beat the butter, cocoa powder, sweetener, and vanilla until smooth. Heat the almond milk and blend it in a blender with the cottage cheese until totally smooth (a Ninja single-serve blender cup works great for this). Beat this mixture into the butter mixture, then add the softened coconut oil and beat again. Put the mixing bowl in the refrigerator to chill for a bit if the frosting is runny, then beat again once it has firmed up a little (if you refrigerate it too long and it won't beat properly, let it set out to warm up to room temperature and try again). Frost the chilled cake as desired, then refrigerate. The frosting will be fudgelike when fully chilled, so don't chill it before frosting your cake.
4. Refrigerate the cake until fully chilled (several hours, or overnight works well too). If you don't want the frosting to be so firm when you eat it, let the cake set out for 20-30 minutes (or more) to warm up before slicing and serving. Serves 12

Notes

You can also use 2 cups of fresh grated zucchini in this recipe but it might not "decompose" in the cake quite as much and you may need to add a bit of extra liquid.
The carbs from the oat flour come out to 4.4 net carbs/serving if you cut the cake into 10 slices (those are big slices). This is well within Trim Healthy Mama S guidelines. To avoid using oat flour, use my Baking Mix variation.
To use Briana's Baking Mix in this recipe, substitute 1½ cups of Briana's Baking Mix for the oat fiber, oat flour, and flaxmeal called for in the recipe. Add ¼ cup of egg whites.

3.5.3208

Check out this sweetener conversion chart for help converting to sweeteners that you have on hand.

Suggested Products:

• I use the single-serve blender cup with this Ninja blender set to blend small amounts of things, like the cottage cheese in this frosting recipe.
• Oat fiber is not the same thing as oat flour (which is just ground up oats; you can do this in your blender/coffee grinder).  You can buy oat fiber here.  You can buy a gluten free option from the Trim Healthy Mama online store.
• I use Hershey’s brand cocoa powder, which can be found in big containers at Sam’s Club (perfect for my chocolate consumption!).
• I love THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder for sweetening, but when making chocolate recipes I like to combine it with Truvia or THM Super Sweet Blend for a more balanced sweetness.  You can purchase the stevia and THM Sweet Blend from the Trim Healthy Mama online store.

You may also enjoy:

Basic Chocolate Layer Cake Fudgy Mocha Frosting Mocha Pudding Cake for One Whipped Chocolate Buttercream (and my 20th Birthday Cake!)