Last fall Cooking Light featured one of those recipes where they take a rich, fattening dish and swap out the problem ingredients with lower calorie choices. Usually I skim these and end up thinking I’d just rather eat a smaller piece of the original evil dessert! But this time they were so emphatic about how great their healthy creation tasted; almost smug actually, that I gave it a whirl.
And guess what…this full of fiber, low fat, lower calorie version really is awesome! And with the apples you also get a serving of fruit! Tender, moist cake with a touch of spice and a buttery,crunchy streusel topping. I will make this again and not because its healthy; but because it’s just really good.
CAKE
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup nonfat buttermilk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 2/3 cups whole-what pastry flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 cups shredded or chopped peeled apple (about 2 large, such as Gala or Honeycrisp)
baking spray
STREUSEL
3 Tbs. quick cooking oats
2 Tbs. chopped walnuts
1 Tbs. brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbs. frozen unsalted butter, grated
Dash of kosher salt
YOGURT CREAM
1/2 cup plain 2 % reduced fat Greek yogurt
3 Tbs. heavy whipping cream
1 Tbs. brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
To prepare the cake: Place first 5 ingredients (through eggs) in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed 30 seconds or until well combined. Lightly spoon the flour in dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour and next 5 ingredients (through ginger) in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in apple by hand. Spread batter into a 9-inch springform pan coated with baking spray.
To prepare streusel: Combine oats and next 4 ingredients (through dash of salt) in a small bowl; toss to combine. Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over batter.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove sides of pan.
To prepare cream: Place yogurt, whipping cream, and 1 Tbs. sugar in a bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until soft peaks form. Serve with warm cake,
Serves 10.
Note: I chopped the apples and liked the chunkier texture. I also skipped the yogurt cream topping and didn’t miss it, although I bet it would be good.
Making this again with sous chef Hunter Kirby, age 3, an excellent egg cracker!
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This comment is from lovely Lisa Case, who keep getting “unreadable captcha error” so e-mailed it to me instead. Loved hearing this!
“We have some dear friends from Park City who are temporarily living in Phoenix while going through the process of receiving a double lung transplant. He (Steve) is 10 days out from a successful transplant and Tom and I met them for their first social excursion out and I tool them this “One Healthy Awesome Apple Cake” and they LOVED it! I had not tasted it before I gave it to them, as I trust you completely in your descriptions and assessments of the recipes, so I made myself another one this morning and it is delish! Another absolute hit that I made them pre-transplant was the coconut lentil soup-rave reviews on that one!”