The Pre-emptive Cake
I don’t like cake. Seriously. I especially hate bakery cakes with yucky frosting. Bakery frosting is gross. (butter cream with white margarine, loved it as a kid)
But I’ve been wanting to make an applesauce cake for a while. I had a jar of applesauce no one wanted to eat. Big jar. Don’t want to throw it out, so I looked online for a cake to bake with it.
Found a recipe that looked pretty good. No fat at all in the cake, no milk, no eggs. Some odd ingredients, but I just left some of those out. I added some ingredients I thought would help, too, like a couple eggs.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m not real popular or anything but I still don’t want anyone bringing a cake for me, so last night I baked one and took it to work today. The preemptive cake, lol!
The recipe I used I found on RecipeSource.com. I used Splenda instead of sugar, since I had some on hand.. I’m sure that cut down even more on the calories. I was surprised that most of the diabetic recipes I found used Splenda…. but didn’t cut down on the fat at all. I understand why… fat adds flavor, especially if it’s butter or margarine that you are using. If it’s just cooking oil, though… yuck, leave it out if you can! More applesauce! (Low fat or no fat products add extra sugar, you really have to watch that!)
The problem with applesauce as a cake additive is… it’s very hard to mix in and the batter will be REALLY stiff… but after cooking the cake will weep. And weep. Powdered sugar for a topping? Turned into a glaze.
The original recipe link: http://www.recipesource.com/baked-goods/desserts/cakes/31/rec3100.html
I don’t think I should post the recipe here, just the link. I changed the heck out of it anyhow. For one thing, I made it half again in size to fit a 13×9 pan. Yeah, the recipe says you can use a bigger pan, but I know that the volume would NOT be nice. It would be a very THIN cake.
My new recipe:
Preemptive Applesauce Cake
9×13 inch pan, greased and floured (I used canola spray and cake flour) Heat oven to 350 F.
3 cups flour (I used cake flour, just because I had some)
1 1/2 cups Splenda
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder (not called for, but didn’t seem right to me)
1 teaspoon salt
4 heaping tablespoons cocoa, unsweetened (far as I can tell this is just for color? can’t taste chocolate in the cake and original recipe says you can leave it out, next time I will add a lot more)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I left out the rest of the spices, apples and chocolate both go well with cinnamon)
24 oz jar of unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
water to make the batter be able to pour (sorry, didn’t measure this)
Mix dry ingredients, add applesauce and eggs and water as needed to make a very thick batter. Pour into prepared pan and spread it out, bake for 45 min or until toothpick comes out clean. (this was right at 45 min for my version of recipe)
I DO recommend sifting some of the dry ingredients together… the things that like to clump, like baking soda. My finished cake came out with lumps of baking soda floating on top. I didn’t use a mixer, just a wire whisk. Mixer would probably be better, get more air into the cake, too.
I won’t try powdered sugar on this cake again if I cover it, it wept too much and turned the powedered sugar into a fine glaze. Not a problem, really, but to be really sugar free you’d want to leave it off anyhow. (I did find a recipe to turn Splenda into powdered sugar, but way too much trouble)
It tasted fine, mostly of applesauce and cinnamon. Not too dense, not too light. No yucky fluffy frosting.
Great cake for a gal turning 50 who is trying to watch what she eats and watch her weight a bit. Even if I don’t normally eat sweets or desserts.
(the cake is a lie!)
Hugs,
Vyx
Happy Birthday, sis!