Healthy Chocolate Melting Cake

This cake is based upon the recipe for Carnival Cruise Line's Chocolate Melting cake that you can find online and freely provided by them.  When on a CCL cruise, I get this every night.  Every.  Single.  Night.  One night I made the mistake of ordering cheesecake.  It was a massive mistake.  I made mine healthy by making it low carb (I'm a carb cutter) and replacing the sugar with date paste (I'm sugarless, too).

Low Carb, refined sugar free chocolate melting cake with banana ice cream.  Excuse the slug shape of the ice cream.

Low Carb, Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Melting Cake

Makes 6 single serving cakes.  Recipe adapted from Carnival Cruise Line and Bakerita.

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/2 cup (or 1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs + 1 egg yolk at room temperature
• 5 tablespoons date paste*, divided
• 1/4 cup powdered peanut butter (PB2, peanut flour, etc.)**

Instructions

1. Pull out 4 eggs to allow to come to room temperature.
2. Preheat the oven to 375F (assuming you will be cooking at least some right away).  Lightly grease 6 3" ramekins with butter and place on a baking sheet.  Set aside.
3. Combine 2 eggs and 3 tablespoons date paste together in a bowl and whisk.  Add the powdered peanut butter and stir to combine.  Add the remaining egg and egg yolk and stir until incorporated.
4. Melt the coconut oil, cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons date paste, and butter together in a bowl.  Heating in the microwave is fine.  Once melted, stir to incorporate.
5. Add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate and mix together until smooth.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the 6 prepared ramekins.  If you don't want to eat any of them right away, keep them in the fridge.
7. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until the edges are set but the center jiggles.
8. Serve immediately with banana ice cream if desired.

Notes

*Refined sugars are replaced with the natural sugars found in dates.  By sweetening with dates, you get not just sugar but also antioxidants, fiber, and nutrients.  Date paste is easy enough to make.  Pack a jar that has a lid with dates (pits removed).  Cover the dates with water, cover with lid, and set aside to soak.  I put mine outside so that the sun can warm them and speed up the process.  Once they have soaked (even just an hour), blend dates and water together.  I used an immersion blender now, but I've used a regular blender in the past.  My paste is usually about a honey thickness, maybe a tad thicker.  Keep date paste in the fridge.

**Powdered peanut butter lowers the carb count from 23.75g for the entire recipe to 4.75g.  I know that every brand I've checked of peanut flour adds some sugar when making.  It is a pretty insignificant amount.  The brand I have states "1g total sugar per 2 tablespoons including 0g added sugar".