So the used book store near where I live has finally opened up again and just recently I bought a new recipe book from there.I bought a book called "LIGHTEN UP! Low Fat Cooking In 15 Minutes" By Ginny Clark.Its a really interesting cookbook.It shows you basic cooking skills and healthier ways to cook. It also has all the recipes set up like a simple comic book strip. See below. The recipe shown in this picture is the cake that I made the day after I got this book. Its set up in a cool way to show the reader how simple it can be and how fun.There are lots of other simple cooking and baking recipes that I would love to try out.
In this recipe, its a healthier version for Cinnamon Coffee Cake.Its made with a low amount of sugar,whole wheat flour and no fat.However when I made this I cheated a bit in the lighting up process.I ended up adding a couple tablespoons of hard margarine to the topping to have more of a buttery flavor.There were also a couple changes that needed to be done because I didn't have the items on hand.The whole wheat flour had to be replaced with the all purpose flour and the apple juice for the topping had to be replaced with puree apple sauce.The apple sauce choice was actually a healthier move for this recipe.
Even with some of these changes it's was still a healthy cake and mind you not as sweet as most coffee cakes I've made.This cake is relying on the applesauce and cinnamon as its main flavor components.The cake topping was delicious.Crunchy,soft and sweet while the cake it self was crumbly and moist.Now the flavor of the cake wasn't anything special.It definitely was cinnamon,but I would of wished for a cake that's sweeter and with stronger flavors.Overall, I feel the topping was doing all the work for the flavor and the cake was missing something in the process.However I did noticed that the flavors absorbed a lot more overtime, especially kept cold, but it still didn't have that flavor I really wanted.So lacking sweetness I had another piece with chocolate ice cream.Its was quite good paired off with a sweeter dessert.
Beside that its a good simple recipe,especially for a low fat, low sugar cake.I definitely recommend it for someone that wants a healthy treat or someone that doesn't have any butter,margarine or oil on hand.I even think adding apple chunks to the cake would give it more flavor and texture.Bringing some more ideas to the recipe would be awesome.
