Lowering calories in sweets

tnicmorris

I have a MAJOR sweet tooth. I love cakes, cookies, ice cream...everything. I was craving some cake yesterday and I was doing a little research and I read that if you substitute apple sauce for oil in baking recipes, it cuts down on the calories and you can't taste the difference. I HAD to try it. Anything that allows me to eat cake is worth a shot. So, I bought box of cake mix and a huge jar of unsweetened apple sauce.

The cake was 95% a success! I could not taste a difference at all. The only hitch was that it wasn't as dense as normal cake. I either baked it too long or the absence of oil made a little less moist. I'm going to try a few different things to see if I can fix that.

So, this has no evolved into a project for me. What other substitutes can I make to make this even lower in calories. As is, the cake topped out at 147 calories per piece of cake. I baked it in a 13x9 pan, so it wasn't a double layer cake. Also, I iced it with white frosting, which added quite a few of the calories.

My next step in this project will be to make a cake from scratch and try to substitute stevia for the sugar. I am also going to look into doing a whipped cream based frosting instead of a store bought frosting. The frosting will probably be lighter and if I can use light whipped cream, it might be less calories too.

I'll let you know how it turns out! And if you have any tips or tricks that could help me, that would be awesome.

skinnyforcruise2013

I just baked a spice cake and all I used in the box mix was a can of Diet Dr Pepper. I top it with a dollop of Cool Whip. It's dense and sweet and delish.

I've also used angel food cake and mixed it with a can of crushed pineapple and that's all. Bake it at 350 for around 30 min. When it cools I put some strawberries and Cool Whip on it and it was fantastic. It was also good just by itself.

Pearsquared

These are both sweet and savory substitutions, but I like to poke at this list if I'm looking to make a substitution:

http://greatist.com/health/83-healthy-recipe-substitutions

ammadove

You can also use pumpkin puree in place of oil in cake and browning mixes. It makes them moist and loaded with vitamins.

AprilOneFourFour

Philadelphia extra light with a bit of vanilla and splenda makes a very good frosting

cals83

The diet soda cake thing works really well. And even better, you can cook them in the microwave in a mug in single serving sizes!

http://creativeconnectionsforkids.com/2012/01/a-cup-of-cake/