Great Lo-Fat Healthy Cake
- Start with one white cake mix, any brand.
- 1 Can cooked whole cranberries (or other fruit)
- 3/4 cup mashed pumpkin (if homemade, frozen, drain liquid off); OR same amount of pureed
- squash, zucchini, yellow squash, anything. (This takes the place of the fat.)
- 1 cup of dry ingredients (a little extra won't hurt), of ground flaxseed, wheat germ, wheat bran,
- rye flour and whole what flour, any one or all in combination, just make an extra cup or so
- of dry ingredients, whatever whole grain flours/products you have on hand.
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda.
- 4 egg whites.
- 1 egg yoke.
- 2/3 cup instant dry milk.
- Enough water for whatever the box on the cake mix calls for.
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp each: ground cloves, allspice, nutmeg, ginger if desired.
Pam-spray a cake pan. I used a Bundt pan, but could use two nine inch layers, big lasagna pan.
Set oven at 350.
Put ALL of dry ingredients in one bowl (larger bowl) and stir until mixed. (That includes the
contents of the cake mix box, the baking soda, the cup of dry ingredients you made up and
the instant dry milk. Also all of the spices you are using.
Put in the smaller bowl the pureed vegetable(s) and 2/3 cup cranberry sauce. Use a wand blender to mix, or you could run it through a regular blender to mix. Needs to be mixed well. Switch to hand mixer. Add the eggs whites and one yolk (Save the three other yokes and freeze if you want to use later, I save mine for my daughter-in-laws dogs.) Last, add the water. Add one cup first. If batter is too thick, add some more water (remember the dry milk is already in the batter, so it is like using milk and all of the other additions make the cake much more healthy for you, besides satisfying your sweet tooth). Keep whipping batter until nice and smooth and fluffy. Looks yummy, but don't taste because of the raw eggs in it.
Put remaining 1/3 cup of cranberries in the sprayed bundt pan. Spread them around. Spoon the batter on top of it, evening it out. It should fill pan little more than a half. If you have extra, make a little loaf cake for yourself without the cranberry toppings.
Bake about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and out of the pan onto a serving platter, allowing about an inch or so on the sides. You can leave it plain because it has the cranberries on it OR you can drizzle a lemon-juice/confectioners-sugar glaze on it (good, the tartness of the lemon goes with the berries), or you can just put on plain old non-fat coolwhip which is really good too.
It sounds complicated but IT IS NOT. Just take a cake mix and have fun with it. Heck you can even make a chocolate cake out of it by adding 3/4 Hersheys dark or regular chocolate, all the health stuff, extra dry ingredients for a little volume (but if you do that be sure to add a little more rising ingredients like baking power or baking soda. Chocolate flavor seems to overide the veggies you use for fat. Omit all spice ingredients except one tsp of cinnamon if you make chocolate cake. You need soda to react with an acid to use as a leavening agent--fruit (cranberries) or oj can provide this. You can even add oj instead of water of half oj and half water. Fun to experiment. And don't worry, whatever you make like this will be delicious. Just don't add fat or sodium and it will contain what it says on the cake mix package pretty much.
Have fun with this recipe and improvise. I call it Khemist in the Kitchen!
Set oven at 350.
Put ALL of dry ingredients in one bowl (larger bowl) and stir until mixed. (That includes the
contents of the cake mix box, the baking soda, the cup of dry ingredients you made up and
the instant dry milk. Also all of the spices you are using.
Put in the smaller bowl the pureed vegetable(s) and 2/3 cup cranberry sauce. Use a wand blender to mix, or you could run it through a regular blender to mix. Needs to be mixed well. Switch to hand mixer. Add the eggs whites and one yolk (Save the three other yokes and freeze if you want to use later, I save mine for my daughter-in-laws dogs.) Last, add the water. Add one cup first. If batter is too thick, add some more water (remember the dry milk is already in the batter, so it is like using milk and all of the other additions make the cake much more healthy for you, besides satisfying your sweet tooth). Keep whipping batter until nice and smooth and fluffy. Looks yummy, but don't taste because of the raw eggs in it.
Put remaining 1/3 cup of cranberries in the sprayed bundt pan. Spread them around. Spoon the batter on top of it, evening it out. It should fill pan little more than a half. If you have extra, make a little loaf cake for yourself without the cranberry toppings.
Bake about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and out of the pan onto a serving platter, allowing about an inch or so on the sides. You can leave it plain because it has the cranberries on it OR you can drizzle a lemon-juice/confectioners-sugar glaze on it (good, the tartness of the lemon goes with the berries), or you can just put on plain old non-fat coolwhip which is really good too.
It sounds complicated but IT IS NOT. Just take a cake mix and have fun with it. Heck you can even make a chocolate cake out of it by adding 3/4 Hersheys dark or regular chocolate, all the health stuff, extra dry ingredients for a little volume (but if you do that be sure to add a little more rising ingredients like baking power or baking soda. Chocolate flavor seems to overide the veggies you use for fat. Omit all spice ingredients except one tsp of cinnamon if you make chocolate cake. You need soda to react with an acid to use as a leavening agent--fruit (cranberries) or oj can provide this. You can even add oj instead of water of half oj and half water. Fun to experiment. And don't worry, whatever you make like this will be delicious. Just don't add fat or sodium and it will contain what it says on the cake mix package pretty much.
Have fun with this recipe and improvise. I call it Khemist in the Kitchen!
Submitted by Sep 26, 2010
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