Nowadays, I am inclined towards fat-free baking. True, we cannot avoid sugar in cakes, but we can minimize them by adding natural sources of sweetness. What do we do for butter? Substitute with natural sources of fat, that are good for your heart.
 |
| Guilt-free Fruit & Nut Cake |
Here's my Low fat Fruit & Nut cake that absolutely delicious and nobody can tell its butter -free or has no plain flour.
I've adapted the recipe from maria's menu but made it healthier by using Avocados and 100% whole wheat flour in place of Maida / All purpose flour/Plain flour. Read on ...
Ingredients:
2 Avocados - ripe (dark green in color)
Whole wheat flour - 1.5 cups
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Dry fruits (like raisins, tutty fruity, apricots, figs, ) +
Nuts (I used chopped almonds and cashews) = totally 1 and 1/2 to 1 and 3/4 cups roughly
Fruit juice (I have tried both Apple juice and Cranberry juice with good success)
Hot milk - 1/4 cup
Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Baking powder - 0.5 tsp
Baking soda- 0.5 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 0.5 tsp
A pinch of salt
Preparation -
- Soak the dry fruits in the fruit juice overnight.
- Drain the juice( save it so you can drink later!) and take the soaked fruits and nuts in a bowl.
- Coat it with 2 tbsp of flour roughly.
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 180 degrees.
- Sieve the flour along with a pinch of salt and baking soda, baking powder --> all dry ingredients. Add cardamom and cinnamon powder.
- Beat the avocados (pitted) with sugar in a mixie.
- Add hot milk to yogurt and mix this to the avocado-sugar mixture. Sure, the batter appears curdled at this stage but fret not!
- Add vanilla essence as well.
- Slowly mix the sieved flour mixture into the wet batter mixture until well-incorporated. You can add more chopped nuts at the stage. I like to add some walnuts :-)
 |
| Batter ready to go into the oven! |
- Prepare a pan by lining with baking paper. Pour the batter and let the oven do the magic :-)
- Do check after 20 minutes using a toothpick to see if the cake is done/ nearing doneness. If its too wet, let bake for another 5 to 10 minutes. Adjust timing by checking every 5 to 7 minutes. If the top is brown but the insides are uncooked/wet, then cover with an aluminum foil so that the top doesn't get burnt.
|
| Just out of the oven! Heavenly goodness! |
Enjoy your cake guilt-free :-)
This is suitable even for heart patients as there is no butter or oil added.
This year (26th Dec 2015), I made this lovely cake again for a potluck party and it was a big hit!!
Some photos -
 |
| Christmas Cake |
 |
| Shopped for dry fruits and nuts and candied fruits :-) |