Healthy Cake Recipes

You don't have to have pumpkin pie to still enjoy pumpkin and spice in a Thanksgiving dessert. Pumpkin helps keep this cake tender and moist while, delicate spices add the classic Thanksgiving flavors.

Classic carrot cake goes vegan in this easy recipe, and gets covered with coconut whipped cream to replace the traditional cream cheese frosting. A mixture of flax and water makes a sturdy substitute for eggs in this vegan cake. Plus, sweet crushed pineapple helps to make this cake delicious with less added sugar.

No special cooking knowledge is needed for this fruity dessert recipe. You literally "dump" the ingredients into a baking dish, pop it in the oven and enjoy.

This luscious swirled cheesecake dessert is a no bake, mix-and-chill recipe. Plus, each slice is under 200 calories!

This comforting cake—fragrant with warm spices and topped with caramelized pears and coconut cream—is lick-your-plate good.

This decadent, moist cake features a creamy pumpkin-spiced custard atop a shortbread-like crust. The cake mix is a convenient shortcut for making the buttery crust. Serve with whipped cream.

Buttermilk and apple butter contribute to the moistness of this simple, one-bowl cake.

This lightened-up cake has the flavor of real vanilla beans, but it's still sweet, delicious, and ready to eat as is or topped with your favorite frosting.

These mini mason jar desserts are not only adorable; they also keep portion sizes in check! These beauties can be prepped in under 20 minutes.

Shredded apple replaces some of the oil and keeps the cake moist in these cinnamon-spiked cupcakes. There is a generous amount of fluffy marshmallow frosting to mound or pipe on top for a festive look. Be sure to frost them right after you make the frosting--it stiffens as it stands and becomes more difficult to spread.

How can you go wrong with the combination of apples and caramel, especially in a fall dessert? This caramel-apple cake recipe is surprisingly easy to make and requires just 20 minutes of active time--not bad for a such a good-looking treat! We call for white whole-wheat flour in this recipe; it has a milder flavor than regular whole-wheat flour and more fiber than all-purpose flour, so it's perfect for making healthier baked goods.

Get cheesecake flavor without having to bake with this healthy dessert recipe. To make it gluten-free, look for gluten-free graham crackers.

This deeply dark chocolate vegan cake is not just for vegans. This fudge-like cake is also gluten-free, perfect for Valentine's Day and can even be made kosher to enjoy for Passover by making your own confectioners' sugar. The fresh berries on the side are a nice addition to the rich chocolate.

If you like spinach-cheese pie, try these simple but elegant-looking little spinach cakes.

This Double Chocolate Cupcake recipe is perfect for the ultimate chocolate lover. Topped with Chocolate Frosting, these diabetic-friendly cupcakes are delicious and impossible to resist.

Our 30th anniversary deserved a cake, and what cake better represents EatingWell than one with vegetables? While many homemade carrot cakes include pineapple in the batter, we made a jammy filling with it instead to tuck between the layers.

Carrots give carrot cake a health-halo effect--people think it's health food, but it's usually very high in fat and calories. But our version has about 40 percent less calories and 50 percent less fat than most. First, we use less oil in our batter. Then we skip the butter in the frosting (don't worry, it's still light and smooth). To ensure the cake is moist, we add nonfat buttermilk and crushed pineapple.

If you're ready for a change from standard pumpkin pie, try this pumpkin torte recipe with a deep chocolate flavor. Pureed pumpkin helps make the dessert incredibly moist and dense. The topping is whipped cream with a touch of vanilla and sugar and a bit of pureed pumpkin folded in.

Stir up a quick cake featuring dates, pecans, and apples for a sweet treat.

Subtly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, each serving of this cake is chock full of chopped apple.

These mini cheesecakes aren't just adorable--baked in a muffin tin, they're quicker to make than traditional cheesecake and perfectly portioned.

Sweet strawberries are nestled between layers of sponge cake and a cream filling in this easy cake. We add nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt to whipped cream to lighten up the filling and give it a little tang.

A rich, flavorful syrup infuses this Mediterranean-inspired walnut coffee cake with the bright aroma of oranges and cloves. Heart-healthy olive oil and whole-grain barley flour add subtle complexity and texture to this nutty treat.

This cake was inspired by the one of the most popular Jamaican desserts, sweet potato pudding. Traditionally, raw shredded sweet potatoes are used, but we found that sweet potatoes sold in the U.S. don't provide the same texture as those in Jamaica. Instead, we mix mashed sweet potato with eggs and flour to get a slightly different, but equally delicious, cheesecake-like result.