The Amish are not immune to the food trends that sweep through other cultures.

A lot of these Amish food trends start out through capitalistic and secular forces. I'll walk you through what happens. For instance, an Amish bulk food store doesn’t cater just to Amish people, it also very much depends on customers who are not Amish. And those customers who are not Amish want certain products.

And as “healthier eating “began to catch on in the culture at large in the 80s and 90s, non-Amish customers began to ask for those products. So then you have Amish storekeepers who started stocking more than just lard for shortening, for instance. You suddenly started having Amish stores that stocking canola oil, olive oil, and now coconut oil as that is gaining in popularity. =All these items, at least at first, are stocked for non-Amish customers primarily. However, as the Amish customers peruse the isles and see these products, they buy them also. And then they catch on in Amish kitchens.

There’s always been an undercurrent in Amish culture that embraces “natural “foods. But larger food trends such as sugar-free and gluten-free, have also caught on in some Amish communities. This recipe from Gloria has Stevia in it, for instance.

The original version of this recipe says the frosting is "sugar free", but it has honey and maple syrup in it which are most certainly not sugar free. I mean, it's very "natural" sugar, not refined and Stevia is a different kind of sugar. None of these are like dumping Domino sugar into a recipe, so I changed the name to "natural frosting."

Whole wheat flour makes this cake a little better than your average all-white flour job. I once met an Amish man who ran his own commercial flour mill. I bought a bunch of wheat flour from him and it was good stuff, I wish I still had some!

I would not make any changes to this Amish Whole Wheat Chocolate Cake recipe, it is near-perfect the way it is. Hmmm, though, I might use decaf coffee. If you tend towards jittery with too much caffeine, you might want to use decaf.

You can use a 9 X 9 baking pan or a glass baking dish or just a round cake pan. Any of those would work. We used a glass baking dish as seen here.

The cream cheese is an important element of the frosting of this cake. Good luck finding some! Soften the cream cheese. If you don't have Stevia, I'd just skip it. A teaspoon is all the recipe calls for and I doubt it adds that much when you have the other sweeteners in the recipe.

Frost the cake when it is cool. Otherwise it'll get too runny.

🎂 Amish Whole Wheat Chocolate Cake With Natural Frosting

1 cup whole wheat flour
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 /2 cup sugar
1 1 /4 teaspoon baking soda
1 /2 teaspoon baking powder
1 /2 teaspoon salt
1 /2 cup olive oil
1 /2 cup brewed coffee
1 /4 cup milk
1 /4 cup honey
1 egg
1 /2 teaspoon vanilla

FROSTING

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
1 /4 cup butter softened
1 1 /2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1 /2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee
1 teaspoon stevia
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons honey

📋 Instructions

Mix dry ingredients together.
Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
Pour into a greased 9 X 9 inch pan.
Bake at 325 for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Frosting

Beat cream cheese and butter together.
Add remaining ingredients.
Whip until desired consistency is reached.
Spread on cooled cake.
Keep cake cool after serving.

🎂 More Amish Cake Recipes

Company Cake

Amish Wedding Cake

Lazy Woman's Cake

🖨️ Full Recipe