Healthy(er) Chocolate Coconut Cake

About a month ago I was in my local health food store and found an organic cake mix on a clearance rack. Given my obsession with all things chocolate, I decided to pick it up. It's been sitting in the pantry since, mostly because I have been just too busy to care. But I had last Friday off, and decided to see what I could come up with.

Healthy(er) Chocolate Coconut Cake

Ingredients:

1 chocolate cake mix ( I bet it would work with any kind, but why not go organic? I used Madhava)

1 cup coconut milk (or whatever amount the box calls for)

1/2 cup coconut oil (or whatever amount the box calls for)

3 eggs (or whatever amount the box calls for)

Instructions:

Preheat oven according to box. For mine, it's 325.

If needed, melt your coconut oil in the microwave (no more than 30sec should do it). 

After you have the melted oil, mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Make sure you get it mixed really good so the oil doesn't separate.

Pour into a greased cake pan. (I greased my pan with more coconut oil)

Bake as instructed, for mine it was 35 minutes

Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before removing from pan (if you plan to remove from pan). 

Allow to cool at least an hour before frosting.

So frosting is another story. I mean, what's the point of a "Healthy" cake if you buy that hydrogenated, trans-fat laden Pillsbury frosting at the grocery store?  I went in search of the perfect frosting for this cake and struck gold.

Chocolate/Coconut Frosting:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup dutch cocoa powder

1/4 cup coconut oil (softened)

1 Tbsp raw honey or pure maple syrup

1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

pinch of sea salt (although I did not use this because we didn't have any)

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl and pour/spread over cooled cake. 

Top with shredded coconut, sea salt, strawberries, fruit, etc. 

I think my favorite part of this cake was eating it. After refrigerating for a bit to stiffen the frosting, it became more like a dense chocolate bar and less like a cake. It has so much texture and flavor. My sister says she thinks it really tastes like coconut. Even my dad liked this, and he's usually only into traditional recipes.  In my book, that's a seal of approval. Just watch out - coconut oil has quite a bit of saturated fat, the good kind, but still. Overall, I think I will probably find myself making most of my cake mixes (organic or not) this way again. I wonder what vanilla would taste like?

~Lisa