Low-Cal Cake? Desperate for suggestions.

I know you can add diet coke to chocolate cake and it makes it like 100 calories without the icing or vanilla cake with diet sprite. you dont add the egg or oil.. just the mix and a can of diet whatever. ive made it before it works and you really cant tell a differemce

Honestly I'd just have a small piece and enjoy it. The low-cal cake recipes I've tried have not been good. I do think cupcakes might be a good option-- why don't you want to do that? I've seen some pretty impressive decorated cupcakes.

http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/

Try Chocolate Covered Katies website - she has some amazing recipes :-)

I agree with the poster above - carrot cake could be a good one? I will go check some of my collection, see if I can find any lower calorie recipes for you :-)

Really you only have one birthday a year so one slice of cake is not going to undo everything - just make sure the rest of the day you eat low calorie to balance it all out?

No-fuss chocolate fudge cake
This fudge cake recipe contains no eggs, no milk, no butter and no fuss! This cake tastes just like the expensive versions sold in cafes. There is no butter to cream, no milk used and no eggs are required either. You just mix it all up in one bowl. If you have 'nothing in the pantry' you can still have your cake and eat it too! This is a rich tasting chocolate cake with the texture of a good 'gooey' fudge cake. Enjoy the following:

1 and half cups plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
1 teaspoon baking soda
half teaspoon salt

Turn oven to 180 C. Grease a 20cm tin well. Dust inside the tin with a little flour. Tap out excess. Put the flour, sugar, cocoa and water in a bowl. Add vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. Mix with beaters until smooth. (Mixture is runny) Pour into the tin. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes then take out of tin, and ice with your favourite icing.

Honestly I'd just have a small piece and enjoy it. The low-cal cake recipes I've tried have not been good. I do think cupcakes might be a good option-- why don't you want to do that? I've seen some pretty impressive decorated cupcakes.

+1. Eat some yummy cake for your birthday, just have a reasonable portion. I eat a giant cupcake from a local bakery about once a month and I am still able to meet my calorie/macro goals on average. Totally worth it!

eta: cupcake bakeries are hot right now, so I think there are lots of people who love them and don't view them as restrictive or inferior to a slice of cake. I have always loved cupcakes! Embrace the cupcake :happy:

Honestly I'd just have a small piece and enjoy it. The low-cal cake recipes I've tried have not been good. I do think cupcakes might be a good option-- why don't you want to do that? I've seen some pretty impressive decorated cupcakes.

I agree. It's okay to take a "day off" on your birthday an enjoy a bit of regular, well made cake. You've done great so far, losing 54 pounds, and it's not going to ruin all of that for you to eat some extra calories.

I also agree with the cupcakes. Some of the stores here have done amazing displays with cupcakes arranged and decorated to make one, big design (flower, bee, Elmo, etc).

And, if it won't hurt your mom's feelings, you can alway discretely scrape off some of the frosting. She still gets to decorate the cake and show it off, you can let her know how beautiful it is, but then not eat all the frosting.

I would also go for angel food cake, mostly because I love it!

You can also replace the oil in cake with apple sauce or pumpkin puree. If you get a cake mix and then mix it with one 14.5 oz can of pumpkin puree (not pie filling) it is delicious! For muffins/cupcakes bake at 350 for 18 minutes. Or for a cake pan probably increase the time but I usually make muffins. I love the pumpkin mixed with lemon cake but you can use any cake mix: chocolate, spice, carrot etc. Then you can have a lower calorie cake and your mom can decorate it to her heart's delight!

It's okay to have a piece of cake on your birthday. This should be a lifestyle change and you can't give up cake forever? Just try to limit it to once a month or once every couple of months!

Angel food cake with strawberries, or any fruit really, sounds great to me! However, if you are making the cake at home from a mix, there are plenty of ways to reduce the calorie count without sacrificing all the pleasurable aspects of birthday cake. My favorite is to use a mix, preferably chocolate, and just substitute equal amounts of applesauce for the oil and use only one whole egg with an extra white. The cake comes out super moist and actually needs no frosting. Great with fruit! Still up there on the sugar, but hey, can't always have everything, right?

ETA: My kids prefer the applesauce chocolate cake to the oil version

bump for later sounds nice

How about a healthy cheesecake? http://foodartcreation.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/low-fat-low-calorie-but-delicious-cheesecake-why-yes/

I really love those angel food cake mixes with the strawberries, bananas, and pudding. You can used sugar free strawberry pie filling, sugar free pudding, and then the cake isn't bad. It's beautiful in a punch bowl (I think it's called Punch Bowl Cake!), and it's really pretty for spring. It gets rid of the pesky icing which is where a lot of the extra calories tend to add on.

I'm also a freak for grandma's banana pudding. I made it for a family gather with lowfat whipped cream, pudding, and low fat vanilla wafers and it was not a terribly bad dessert in terms of calories, though I still had to budget for it in my day.