Heart Healthy Coffee Cake
Updated Aug. 13th, 2024
What’s not to love about this coffee cake – it tastes amazing, it’s moist and it’s even good for your heart! While this cake is rich in monounsaturated fats from walnuts, pecans, cashews and almonds, it actually helps to protect your heart and help to lower your cholesterol. It’s even overflowing with nutrients that are beneficial for heart disease and diabetes, so be sure to share the benefits of this tasty treat with loved one's!
- Gluten Free
- Dairy Free
- Egg Free
- Sugar Free
- Vegetarian
Ingredients:
| coffee cake topping | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1/2 cup walnuts | 1/4 cup coconut sugar | 1 tablespoon finely ground, blanched almond flour |
| 1/2 cup pecans | 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon |
| coffee cake | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2 cups finely ground, blanched almond flour | 1/2 cup non-dairy milk – (unsweetened original almond milk works great) | 3/4 cup coconut sugar |
| 3/4 teaspoon baking powder | 1 medjool date, pitted | 2 large eggs |
| 1/2 teaspoon baking soda | 1/4 cup raw cashews | 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract |
| 1/4 teaspoon himalayan rock salt | 6 tablespoon coconut oil at room temperature |
Directions
Cake Topping: Set your oven to 170F (or the lowest setting it will go) and adjust your racks so there is one in the middle. Toss all of your nuts onto a lined baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until lightly brown. Once finished, do a rough chop and set aside to cool. Mix together your coconut sugar, roasted nuts, cinnamon and flour in a small bowl and set aside until step 6.
Cake:
Readjust your oven to 350F
- Using a small portion of coconut oil, grease a 9-inch cake pan or spring form pan if you have it. You could even add a layer of parchment paper to the bottom to ensure your cake toppings stay in place when you remove it later.
- In a large bowl, combine your flour, baking powder, soda and salt and stir to combine. Set aside.
- Next, use a blender or food processor pulse your milk, dates and cashews until smooth. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, add your warmed coconut oil and using a hand mixer, beat until smooth. Slowly add your sugar, then eggs and your vanilla extract – all the while scrapping down the sides of your bowl and combining until well incorporated before adding the next ingredient.
- Still using your hand mixer, or just a spoon, slowly add in your flour mixture and your milk mixture. Making sure everything is mixed well.
- Now you have to layer! Sprinkle half of your topping mixture into the bottom of the cake pan, followed by your entire cake batter, and finished off with the remaining half of your nut mixture.
- Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, checking during your baking process to avoid burning.
- Once the cake is baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from the pan and serving!
Make It This Way
You can switch up the topping ingredients in this recipe by using your favorite nut blend or by adding dried fruits. You could even try adding some super foods, like goji berries or golden berries.Try This
For an even tastier dessert, combine this warm slice of cake with a scoop of non-dairy vanilla ice cream and a cup of coffee.
This recipe for heart healthy coffee cake looks so delicious! There is something so delicious about baked goods with pecans in them, I find it really elevates the flavour! I also love how this recipe includes dates because they really help sweeten any recipe as well as make it so soft, I am loving how so many of these traditional classics can be turned into something healthy by adding certain ingredients or substituting certain things! Looks so good, thank you for sharing!
I have an issue with my teeth here they are more snsitive to acids than most people's. So, I avoid coffee. Well, drinking it! I absolutly cannot resist the flavor that coffee or coffee flavor lends to some foods as in coffee caramel or coffee cake. This particular cake recipe (save the eggs which I would substitute for flax eggs) hits all the right notes for me: I love walnuts & pecans, coconut is my oil of choice for baking, almond flour has a nice taste to it too, I find, and I like both dates as well a coconut sugar as sweeteners for both taste and health reasons. Thanks for a great dessert idea, NN! :D