Monday Nutrition Tip of the Week: Atonement

About a year ago I confessed that I have an amateur cake decorating business. And I do mean amateur; I specialize in cute (not beautiful...that's another level) cakes for family, friends, and Zach's co-workers. Since I've been in the "health-kick" business of late I haven't made many cakes, but late last week I was up to my elbows in butter cream frosting, making 72 total cupcakes for two different parties.

It's fun to decorate cakes. I like dying the frosting to just the right color, choosing the tip that will make an ordinary cupcake into a tiny, edible work of art. (OK, so "art" is being dramatic. But they are cute.)

The first two dozen cupcakes were for a ladybug-themed baby shower.

The ladybugs were made of a new concoction Wilton dreamed up called "Sugar Sheets," which is basically edible decorating paper. The closest way to describe Sugar Sheets are less sticky fruit roll ups. They were pretty cool and easy to work with.

The next 48 cupcakes were for a four-year-old birthday party. These turned out well and were really fun to make.

The Hello Kitties were sugar candies. (And thank goodness for that...I would still be decorating those things right now if I did the kitties by hand.)

So, after using 12 cups of powdered sugar, 1 1/2 sticks of butter, and 2 blocks of cream cheese in just the frosting (we're not even going to talk about the cakes), I feel like I need some absolution this morning.

Here is a recipe for Chocolate, Zucchini, Sweet Potato Cake. It's perfect for the health-conscious Mom of a one-year-old who doesn't want to send her kid into sugar-and-artifical-ingredient shock at the first birthday party. This is a dense, lightly sweet cake that really doesn't taste "healthy" despite the zucchini and sweet potato.

The bad news is that I don't have a similarly reduced fat or sugar frosting. So my advice there is: don't use so much. You probably can get by with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of frosting on the cake instead of the towering inch of frosting on those cupcakes in the pictures up there.


Chocolate, Zucchini, Sweet Potato, Cake
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose or cake flour
• 1/2 cup wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup grated zucchini
• 1 cup grated sweet potato 
• 3 TB Water 
• 1 cup pecans, roughly chopped (optional)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter and flour a pan (Bundt, 9 x 11 or two 9-inch round cake pans).
3. Sift together first 7 ingredients.
4. Set aside.
5. In a mixer mix oil, applesauce, sugar, honey. Add eggs and vanilla.
6. Mix dry ingredients into egg mixture then add buttermilk and water.
7. Stir in remaining ingredients.
8. Pour into pan and bake till toothpick comes out clean. (Time will vary based on pan used: for 9 x 11 or 9-inch round pans start checking at about 25 minutes.)
   
   
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   Workout of the Day
   P90X One on One Vol. 3:, Chest, Back and Balls

You Can't Beet This Cake

Sorry about the title of this post. I had to do it.

So: beets. I don't know of many grocery stores that are struggling to keep these puppies on the shelves. And aside from the pickled or canned variety, I don't know many people that have tried fresh beets before. My first experience with beets came when I was making baby food for my daughter. I read that beets are chock full of folic acid, potassium, calcium, and antioxidants. So I roasted a pureed a few, and she really liked them, which I was happy about...until she sneezed while eating them one day and sprayed bright red beet bits all over the wall and floor.

Anyway, last week I promised to update you about a chocolate cake I was going to make that has beet puree as one of its ingredients. The recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld.

I wouldn't say this cake is healthy per se, but it does substitute white sugar for brown, canola oil for butter, and egg whites instead of whole eggs (or rather, one whole egg and two egg whites).

For those of you who have never seen beet puree, here's how it looks:

Such a nice deep red color! Sesame Street keeps reminding us to "Eat Your Colors!", so I know this has got to be good.

The rest of the cake ingredients were pretty standard. Semisweet chocolate squares, buttermilk, vanilla, flour, etc. The final batter was a burgundy color, although this picture gives it a pinkish hue:

The batter tasted delicious, and the final cake turned out to be nice and dense (which makes it easy to work with when it comes to icing).

One way this cake cuts calories is that it makes only one nine-inch cake instead of two. It suggests that you cut the cake layer in half and spread frosting between the layers and on the top. It was during my imperfect dissection of the cake that I was able to sample a small piece, and it was very good. It was not an overpowering chocolate flavor, and the beets were imperceptible.

The frosting uses reduced-fat cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Here is the final product:

As with most of the cakes I bake, I sent it off with Zach this morning to be (hopefully) devoured by the teachers and staff. But I didn't forget to print out a note that said, "Chocolate Cake, fortified with beets. Have your cake, and eat your vegetables. See you at the Wednesday Workout at 4:30 tomorrow."