Cakes and Icings

A 3" by 3" piece of cake with 1/2 cup of light ice cream. 

  In moderation, cakes can fit into a healthy eating plan. The main fat sources are vegetable oil and 2 or 3 eggs, making them lower in saturated fat than cookies and pastries made with solid fats. Of course, they still have a considerable amount of refined flour and sugar, and the icing or frosting usually has to be made with a solid fat to achieve the appropriate consistency. If you have to use a solid fat, I recommend butter both for taste and to avoid trans fats in hydrogenated products. Remember portion sizes, too. A serving of cake is about a 3" by 3" square, which is perfectly adequate without making you feel like you just downed a whole bag of sugar.

  Portion size and moderation are always important, but today I've come up with some solutions to the saturated fat dilemma in icing. My first idea is to use a fruit topping, and secondly I have a new recipe for frosting with no solid fats. 

Cake with cherry topping.

  The cake that I made today was inspired by a photo of cake, cherries, and ice cream on Tumblr. I made a cake from a mix and topped it with cherry pie filling in place of frosting, then added 1/2 cup scoop of light vanilla bean ice cream before serving. 

  Just bake the cake per the instructions, then add the fruit topping about 5 minutes before the cake is done. Continue baking so the fruit gets nice and warm. Any combination of cake, fruit topping, and ice cream can be used. Be creative and use your favorites. The back of the Betty Crocker cake mix box even suggested adding a layer of apricot preserves under a thin layer of icing.

  Now I have an actual recipe for chocolate cake and frosting from Hershey's Cocoa. The cake is a typical chocolate cake made from scratch, but the frosting has no solid fats! Dream Whip is used for texture and consistency, so butter, margarine, or shortening are not needed.

Hershey's Light Chocolate Cake

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup Hershey's Cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

6 Tbsp. extra light corn oil spread

1 cup sugar

1 cup skim milk

1 Tbsp. white vinegar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions: 

Heat oven to 350 F. Spray two 8" round pans with cooking spray. 

In bowl, stir flour, cocoa, and baking soda. 

In saucepan, melt corn oil spread; stir in sugar. Remove from heat. Add milk, vinegar, and vanilla to mixture in saucepan; stir. Add dry ingredients; whisk until well blended. 

Pour evenly into pans. Bake 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean. Cool. 

Fill and frost top. Refrigerate. 12 servings.

Light Cocoa Frosting

Ingredients: 

1 envelope Dream Whip dry whipped topping mix

1/2 cup cold skim milk

1 Tbsp. Hershey's cocoa

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions: 

In small mixing bowl, stir together all ingredients. Beat on high speed of mixer about 4 minutes or until soft peaks form. 

Each serving contains 160 calories and 115 mg sodium with the frosting, 140 calories and 105 mg sodium without frosting, and no cholesterol. 
This cake is low enough in total carbs that it can fit into a diabetic meal plan as long as the proper portion size is consumed. However, the cherry topped cake with ice cream is a little too high in carbs for diabetics.