Healthy Coconut Lime Cake

Healthy coconut lime cake is dense, moist and full of tropical flavors. Topped with homemade cream cheese frosting for a delectable healthy cake.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on this blog, you’ll be hard pressed to find a recipe that contains mint.

It’s because I truly think mint should be reserved for toothpaste and gum, not used in desserts or drinks.

You’ll actually only find one recipe on here containing mint: St. Patrick’s Day Blondie Bars. This recipe was made with mint M&M’s, and while I thought they were decent, I wouldn’t go back to mint desserts.

All of this to say that when I’m working up some St. Patrick’s Day worthy recipes, I have to think outside of the box for non-mint recipes.

That’s where this healthy coconut lime cake comes into play.

It has just enough green to pass for the leprechaun holiday, but contains no mint. What it does contain is a tropical lime and coconut flavor that will have you dreaming of palm trees and white sandy beaches.

While many of us still aren’t traveling that much, this cake is the best escape plan while you hunker down in your home.

So what makes this a healthy coconut lime cake? So glad you asked!

How to make healthy coconut lime cake

The healthy ingredients

This cake is actually loosely based on one of my favorite cakes from a couple years ago. The cranberry orange bundt cake.

These cakes use white whole wheat flour. I like to use King Arthur because the texture is nice and smooth like a traditional white all purpose flour. But I decided to add it a little coconut flour to these cakes. It makes the crumb of the cake soooo delish!

Natural sweetness comes from both natural cane sugar and honey. The honey provides not only sweetness, but a superb texture to the cake.

Olive oil provides the necessary fat to keep these cakes tender and buttery delish without the butter.

Putting a zing in your healthy coconut lime cake

The addition of ground ginger and plenty of lime juice adds just the right amount of “zing” to this cake.

A small amount of coconut extract also takes these mini coconut lime cakes to the tropical space we spoke of earlier.

The combination of ginger, lime juice and coconut extract just takes these little cakes to the next level.

I’m honestly dreaming of sitting on a beach chair, cake in hand and a tropical drink. Warm breeze blowing over my bare legs. Sunnies on and soaking up the much needed heat.

Kennedy, my daughter, yelling in the background has brought me back to reality. I’m sitting here in freezing cold Wisconsin all bundled up. But at least I can still enjoy one of these cakes!

Cream cheese frosting dreams

You can’t think I’d leave you hanging in the frosting department, did you?

Of course not!

Cake almost always deserves frosting, with a few minor exceptions (i.e. this lemon blueberry bundt cake).

This healthy coconut lime cake gets a hefty smear of traditional cream cheese frosting. Which, I guess, one could consider not healthy. But if you want to get super technical, then you can leave this cake frostingless (not suggested).

One of the best tricks I’ve ever learned for piping frosting of any sort is to take a large glass and place either a piping bag or Ziploc inside and fold the top over.

Spoon your frosting into the bag and then twist the bag so the frosting pushes down to the bottom. Cut a small bit off the bottom of the bag for your “tip”.

Then swirl frosting in and out of the mini bundt cake following the ridges of the cake. Easy peasy, limey squeezie. Okay, I know that’s not how it goes, but we’re talking about limes in this cake, so it had to be done.

How to enjoy healthy coconut lime cakes

Um duh, by taking a big ole’ forkful to your beautiful mouth.

The best part is that these cakes are mini {which I may have forgotten to mention earlier}, so you don’t have to have a whole entire cake sitting around at home.

Even better, these cakes freeze super well, even with the frosting. Cream cheese frosting has enough fat that when it thaws it’s back to it’s original goodness.

No matter how you plan to enjoy these cakes, I’m sure you’ll be happy with a non-minty St. Patty’s Day alternative.

Looking for more St. Patrick’s Day recipes? Check these out:

Shamrock cream cheese cookies

Guinness snickerdoodle cookies

Guinness chocolate Rolo cookies

Print

Healthy Coconut Lime Cake

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Total Time

40 mins

 

Healthy coconut lime cake is dense, moist and full of tropical flavors. Topped with homemade cream cheese frosting for a delectable healthy cake.

Ingredients

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup white whole wheat flour
• ½ cup coconut flour
• ⅓ cup raw cane sugar
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup olive oil
• ½ cup honey
• ⅓ cup fresh squeezed lime juice
• Zest of 1 ½ limes
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. coconut extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

• 8 oz cream cheese room temperature {or softened}*
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 Tbsp. milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F and grease four mini bundt pans with baking spray.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, ginger, baking powder and salt.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, honey, lime juice, lime zest, vanilla, coconut extract and egg, until combined.
4. Add the dry ingredients, half at a time, stirring after each addition, until combined. Stir in the shredded coconut.
5. Spoon the batter evenly among the four bundt pans.
6. Bake for 30-32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove and allow to cool on a wire rack.
7. Meanwhile, make the cream cheese frosting. In a medium bowl, add the room temperature cream cheese. Mix with a hand mixer on medium speed until smooth.
8. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and continue to mix until smooth. Add 1-2 Tbsp. of milk and mix to combine.
9. Spoon the batter into a piping bag and once the bundt pans are cool enough to touch, flip over. Frost the bundts with the cream cheese frosting. Sprinkle with additional shredded coconut or lime zest for decoration.

Recipe Notes

*Note: these cakes freeze very well. Place in an airtight container and place saran wrap over the top. Cover and place in the freezer.