Greek Yogurt Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

 
During my sophomore year of high school, I discovered the cookbook section of our local library. Although I almost exclusively browsed through the young adult fiction section before then, my stack of books to check out immediately grew twice as tall as I slipped cookbook after cookbook off of those tan metal shelves.  

I selected a baking cookbook as my first choice to crack open (no surprises there!), and I pored over each page with a pen in my hand, scribbling down each recipe I wanted to try on a separate note pad. After filling up two full sheets, I scanned my list and circled “chocolate chunk yellow cake,” then flipped back to that page and traced my finger down the list of ingredients.

Because I inherited my chocoholism from my mom (and wrote my Healthier Chocolate Treats cookbook as a result!), our pantry always housed at least seven different varieties of dark chocolate. I picked out the humongous pound-plus bar from Trader Joe’s (← to this day, that’s still one of our all-time favorites!), broke off multiple blocks, and started chopping it into small pieces with a paring knife. The big chef’s knife intimidated me back then!
 

 
After I worked on chopping the chocolate for nearly 20 minutes (yes, I’m a bit of a perfectionist…), my grandfather walked into the kitchen and chuckled at my knife choice. He reached for the middle-sized knife, not quite as heavy as the chef’s knife and therefore more manageable for me, and demonstrated how to quickly chop the chocolate blocks into small bits by resting my other hand’s fingers on the top of the blade and rocking the knife back and forth.

While the pieces didn’t look nearly as even and perfect as my meticulous cut-by-cut method, that certainly sped up the process… And meant we got to eat cake that much sooner!

But after baking that cake, I made a mental note to substitute chocolate chips in recipes that called for freshly chopped chocolate chunks as often as I could. No cutting board or big knife to wash and eating dessert 20+ minutes sooner sounded much better to me!
 

 
I’ve kept that trick in mind over all of these years, including when I baked this Greek Yogurt Chocolate Chip Pound Cake! It’s perfectly tender with a warm vanilla flavor, and my chocoholic sweet tooth loved how many rich melty chips hid inside. Even better, it’s just 150 calories and contains no refined flour or sugar!

So… That basically makes it healthy enough for breakfast, right?
 

 
Traditional pound cakes earned their name because they included a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. I don’t know about you, but… That sounds like a ton of unhealthy and unnecessary calories to me. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to burn off all of those, so let’s talk about how we’re going to make this recipe much healthier!

You’ll start with white whole wheat flour. White whole wheat flour is made by finely grinding a special type of white wheat, whereas regular whole wheat flour comes from a heartier variety of red wheat. This gives white whole wheat flour a lighter taste and texture, similar to that of all-purpose flour, making it perfect for this tender cake! Even better, it still has the same health benefits (like extra fiber) as regular whole wheat flour.

Note: Whole wheat pastry flour would be a great substitute, and I’ve included my preferred gluten-free blend in the Notes section as well.
 

 
Rather than a pound of butter (that’s about 2 cups!) and whole eggs (about 9 of them!), you’ll only use 1 tablespoon of butter (or coconut oil!) and 3 egg whites. Yes, that’s it! To give your healthy pound cake its extra tender texture, you’ll use one of my favorite ingredients instead…

Greek yogurt! (Although I’m sure you already guessed that from the recipe title…) Greek yogurt adds the same moisture as extra butter or oil to your baked goods for a fraction of the calories. Because it contains about 21g of protein per cup, as opposed to regular yogurt with around 10g, it also gives your treats a big protein boost!
 

 
You’ll skip the pound of granulated sugar too and sweeten this pound cake with another one of my favorite ingredients: vanilla crème stevia. Stevia is a plant-based, no-calorie sweetener that’s clean eating friendly, and it’s highly concentrated. A little goes a long way! You’ll need 3 teaspoons for this recipe, which is the equivalent of about 2 ½ cups of sugar. This is the vanilla crème stevia that I buy because I love its warm flavor and don’t notice any aftertastes like with some other stevia products. You can find it at many health-oriented grocery stores, as well as online. (And you’ll use it in all of these recipes of mine, too!)

And now for the best part… The chocolate! I highly recommend mini chocolate chips because their smaller size ensures that every bite of cake contains at least one morsel of chocolate. I love Ghirardelli’s because they have a phenomenal rich flavor and melt really well. Who can resist those ooey gooey pockets of melty chocolate??
 

 
Definitely not me! ? And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees that I’ll see the notification from you! ?) I’d love to see your pound cake and feature it in my Sunday Spotlight series!

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You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♥   Greek Yogurt Lemon Pound Cake
♥   Coffee Loaf Cake with Dark Chocolate Drizzle
♥   Simple Strawberry Lemon Cake
♥   Simple Cinnamon Apple Cake
♥   Simple Orange Poppy Seed Cake
♥   Simple Raspberry Lemon Cake
♥   Banana Cake with Fudgy Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting