Yes, I made a new cake with spinach, a Chocolate Pumpkin Spinach Cake. It’s official. I’m ridiculous. But wait until you try this!
You can think I’m crazy if you want to. You’d be right. But adding spinach to cake? Well, it’s a hilarious way to eat vegetables. Your family will be none the wiser unless they watch you make the cake. Then you have some explaining to do.
Therin lies all the ingredients for a pumpkin chocolate cake, plus a generous amount of fresh spinach. All blended up, it turns into a cake. For Popeye. And everyone else.
Hey, this is a million times better than this fun – but full of sugar and white flour – add spinach to a cake mix idea. I still plan to make that from time to time because it’s fun and truly a good way to get my kids to eat greens.
But this Chocolate Pumpkin SPINACH Cake has both pumpkin and spinach, so it’s basically a health food. Covered in frosting. ;)
Chocolate Pumpkin Spinach Cake
- 1 cup melted coconut oil
- 1 can pumpkin puree (15 ounces)
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup water
- 2-3 cups fresh spinach leaves
- 4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 cup sucanat or brown sugar
- dash of sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Put all ingredients into a high power blender (like a Blendtec) starting with liquids first.
- Blend until well mixed and smooth.
- Pour ingredients into a 9x13 inch cake pan.
- Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow cake to cool completely before frosting.
Want some low-sugar frosting options? Follow this search I did, and find all kinds of fun frosting ideas. Plus, you’ll see more cake recipes, and you know you want to add spinach to all of those!!
Have you tried this idea? Tell me how it went for you!
My family cannot tell there’s spinach in our cake. I love this!
I pinned this recipe to try later! It would be a good way to use up extra spinach & make dessert a little healthier! : )
Our family has enjoyed many of your yummy recipes over the last several years. Thank you so much!
Based on your success with spinach in cake, I put spinach in my brownies yesterday. They look great, they taste great…I would say they were a success! Thanks for a brilliant idea.
Sooo…I followed the recipe (mostly)-realized I did not have coconut oil when I got back from the store, so I used a canola blend (I know-less healthy)…
Also, I used exactly 3 oz. of a 6 oz package of baby spinach (2 to 3 cups is too broad a range for a novice baker such as myself)
I blended but my blender could NOT hold all of the ingredients all together, so I had to blend, empty into a stainless-steel bowl, combine, re-blend in portions.
Anyway, when I finished blending/combining, the batter was sort of the consistency and color of what one might find in a newborn’s diaper…but the raw batter tasted okay, and I had already pre-heated the oven, so I went for it.
The recipe did not say to do this-but I sprayed a little PAM cooking spray into the bottom of the 9×13 glass pan.
So I pulled it out of the oven at exactly 30 minutes, and a bamboo skewer inserted in the center came out clean. The baked batter had darkened considerably, its color looked like German chocolate cake.
Frosted with Pilsbury vanilla icing. Full sugar.
The cake is moist! Personally, I wish it was a little sweeter (but that’s the point, I get that.) It’s denser than a boxed cake, too. I think if you think “chocokate pumpkin bread” consistency/sweetness, this is a pleasant surprise/treat!