While chocolate cake with rich, creamy icing makes a delightful finish to any meal, you may not realize that when you down a piece, you could be eating just as many calories as were in your entire meal. To keep fat and calorie values in check, find out more about what’s in your cake and how you can indulge while still prioritizing nutrition.
Ingredients
Cake itself is almost never low in sugar, and buttercream frosting can contain just as much sweetener per serving. Buttercream is made from mainly butter and powdered sugar, with occasional flavor additions such as vanilla extract, cocoa powder or fresh fruit. As a result, it’s high in both fat and carbohydrates. Chocolate cake can be slightly lower in sugar and fat per serving, but it typically contains liberal amounts of rich ingredients such as butter or oil, eggs, cocoa powder and refined white flour.
Nutrition Information
As the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, a 95-g slice of chocolate cake that has no frosting contains approximately 350 calories, 5 g of protein, 14.5 g of fat, 51 g of carbohydrates and 1.5 g of fiber as well as 55 mg of cholesterol. Adding frosting to the cake nearly doubles those values. A quarter cup of creamy chocolate frosting has about 325 calories, 1 g of protein, 14.5 g of fat, 52 g of carbohydrates, 0.7 g of fiber and more than 47 g of sugar.
Variations
It is possible to prepare chocolate cake and frosting with more nutritious ingredients. Although the calorie value may not be much lower, you can get more protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals per slice by using natural foods and reduced-fat ingredients in your recipe. For example, Ann Gentry, who works as a food writer and executive chef for "Vegetarian Times" magazine and is the author of “The Real Food Daily Cookbook,” recommends preparing chocolate frosting with unsweetened cocoa powder, agave nectar and pureed silken tofu. In its January 1998 issue, “Cooking Light” magazine suggests lightening chocolate cake by making it with reduced-fat buttermilk and egg substitute.
Considerations
Chocolate cake with a generous amount of frosting adds so many calories to a typical day’s diet that it’s difficult to eat it often without steadily gaining weight unless you reduce the calories you normally eat. However, if you stick to small portions and view cake as an indulgence rather than an everyday treat, you can still follow a balanced diet and enjoy it occasionally. When possible, look at nutrition labels ahead of time or calculate nutritional facts of a cake recipe with an online calorie counter so you get accurate information about what you’re eating and how it fits into your diet.
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