HEALTHY CHOCOLATE CHERRY COFFEE CAKE!

The Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake is soft and tender, topped with the yummy-chewy chocolate crumbs and filled with the cherry flavor!  It’s easy to make, wholesome and lower calorie than a traditional chocolate coffee cake, but just as yummy and flavorful… only without any guilt involved!

After I’ve baked my Healthy Peach Coffee Cake our whole family and the friends who I’ve shared this cake with loved it… I decided to go along with my Coffee Cakes’ baking and make yet another Coffee Cake: The Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake! But it wasn’t just the flavor of that Peach Coffee Cake that I personally enjoyed! What was just as important was… that the process of making it turned out to be much EASIER as I’ve expected! 🙂

For a “busy-lazy” person like me who doesn’t want to spend extra hours in the kitchen baking and THEN cleaning, and THEN making the dinner, etc – this one little thing is a biggy:) But like I said: making the Peach Coffee Cake was so much easier than I though it’d be!

And here’s another time-saving tip that I want to share with you today! 

HOW TO MAKE THE COFFEE CAKES BAKING QUICKER!

This tip actually applies to ALMOST ANY cake, cupcake, cookie, dessert  or… well, yes – almost any recipe!

Here it is: Instead of making just ONE cake… Make two versions of the cake: two flavors (like vanilla and chocolate variation, strawberry and blueberry variation, etc)!

Since the dough ingredients are basically same – all you need to do is mix ONE DOUGH…

Then split it in half…

And then mix in your flavors! The only little adjustment that you’ll need to make when you’re doing the vanilla and the chocolate variation is that since a part of the flour in the chocolate variation is usually replaced with the cocoa powder, when you’re making your dough just use the amount flour from the chocolate recipe.

And then, as you split the dough in half – add the cocoa powder to the chocolate version of it…

And add MORE flour to the vanilla version!

What do you think? Does this make sense? I found this little time-management trick to be SO seriously helpful!

Because I can now bake two different cakes and freeze one for later.

Or… I can also prepare both doughs and freeze one dough for later! This way when I want / need to bake – all I have to do is take the dough out of the freezer and bake it!

Oh, and if it’s a Coffee Cake (which consists of the tender dough and the streusel crumbs on top), follow the same process with the crumbs: mix up the “master” dough, add the cocoa to the chocolate version and more flour to the vanilla version. And then freeze the streusel topping separately (which can also be used as a pie crust, as a topping for your crumble or baked as sugar cookies!). Finally, I wouldn’t recommend adding your produce (berries/ fruit) to the dough if you’re going to freeze it. It’s always best to go with the fresh berries and fruit: they won’t make your cake watery as the frozen ones in the dough would.

And they’ll just generally taste better! 🙂

This time I actually baked two cakes: the Healthy Peach Coffee Cake and this Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake!

I put the Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake in the freezer, for the upcoming party where we’re invited to go next week! One day before going to the party I’ll just thaw out the cake instead of having to bake it…

Et Viola I I got my cake all ready to go! And I’ll have some extra time to relax and prettify myself before the event! Without having to worry about baking… or cleaning up! 🙂

So, what do you say? Was this trick useful at all? Would you like to get more time-saving tricks like this from me? 🙂

But for now… Let’s bake that cake, shall we? 🙂

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Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake

The Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake is soft and tender, topped with the yummy-chewy chocolate crumbs and filled with the cherry flavor!

Course Cake, Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Cherry Coffee Cake, Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake, Healthy Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Servings 12 slices

Calories 114 kcal

Author Liza

Ingredients

For The Cake:

• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup cherries pitted and cut in half

For The Topping:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line an 8x8 baking pan (or a 9" round pan) with parchment paper (or coat with nonstick spray).

2. In a medium-large bowl whisk egg whites and sugar until frothy, but not stiff. Add the milk, butter, sugar, and vanilla extract. Mix together until incorporated.

3. Whisk the baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and flour.

4. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture. Stir until incorporated.

5. Add the cherries to the batter and pour the batter in the pan.

6. In the same bowl mix together all the topping ingredients until mixture forms small chunks. To make mixing easy I used an electric mixer. You can also use a pastry blender or two knives. Scatter over the top of the batter in the pan.

7. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.