Lightened lemon coffee cake loses calories, but not flavor
| • | Building a restaurant |
By Elaine Magee
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Q. I saw this recipe on www.marthastewart.com and would love to make it, but it seems very time-consuming and full of butter and white flour. Any suggestions?
A. I love the idea of lemon coffee cake. I completely took out the step of simmering the lemon slices and adding them in layers to the coffee cake. There's plenty of lemon going on in this recipe already.
I reduced the amount of streusel a little (it seemed like there was almost more streusel than cake to begin with) and used part whole-wheat flour and a combination of 1/4 cup each of light cream cheese and less-fat margarine instead of 3/4 cup butter.
For the cake, I used half whole-wheat flour, less-fat margarine instead of butter, switched to fat-free sour cream and added two egg whites instead of one of the eggs. I also took the sugar down by 25 percent. All of these changes create a lighter version of the coffee cake with a third fewer calories and two-thirds less fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.
The original recipe contains 511 calories, 69 g carbohydrates, 24 g fat, 15 g saturated fat, 94 mg cholesterol and only 1 g fiber per serving.
LUSCIOUS & LIGHT LEMON COFFEE CAKE
For the streusel:
For the cake:
For the glaze:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat an angel food pan with canola cooking spray or something similar.
To make streusel, in large mixing bowl combine whole-wheat flour, white flour, brown sugar and salt. Blend in the light cream cheese and less-fat margarine by beating on low speed.
Drizzle the melted margarine over the top and beat on low to combine. Transfer to a medium-sized bowl, cover and set aside in refrigerator until needed.
In medium bowl, combine dry cake ingredients (1 cup whole-wheat flour, 1 cup white flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt) and set aside.
In large mixing bowl (same as for the streusel — don't worry about cleaning it), combine 1/2 cup margarine, granulated sugar and lemon zest by beating on medium speed until light and fluffy. With mixer running on low speed, add egg, beating until blended, then egg whites, vanilla extract and lemon oil if desired. Scrape sides of bowl and beat briefly to blend everything well.
On low speed, add half the flour mixture along with half of the sour cream. Once blended, add the remaining half of the flour mixture and sour cream.
Spoon the batter into prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the chilled streusel evenly over the batter. Bake until tester inserted in center comes out clean (about 55 minutes). Let cool in pan for 15 minutes on wire rack.
Run knife around the edges of the pan and remove outer pan. Let cool an additional 15 minutes and run knife around the center tube and transfer cake to serving plate.
Just before serving, in small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons lemon juice (add more lemon juice if needed for desired consistency). Drizzle over the cooled cake and serve.
Makes 12 servings.
