Butter And Sugar Free Coffee Walnut Cake: Healthy Baking

Coffee Walnut Cake: does it ring a bell? What if I say it is completely Butter Free? The bell is ringing. Right? But hey wait have I mentioned I’m done? And it is Sugar Free Cake too. Feeling like on top of the World? Yeah that’s what I felt too when I had it for the first time. But only for your ears, I wasn’t so happy when I started arranging things for the baking. In fact I was so scared that I kept on peeking into the oven in every 10 minutes.  

It has been almost a month now I tasted a cake. On last Christmas and New Year Eve I baked Tutty Frutty Cake and Triple Chocolate Walnut Brownie. Both cakes were rich and full of sin with chocolates, butter and sugar. So I decided not to bake anything that much sinful for the time being. But my sweet craving is such a pain in the ass(!!!). Though I enjoyed so many desserts in last one month due to Poush Parbon or Festival of Winter my cake craving is back with an ache. Again I started looking for fresh cake recipes but all were loaded with cream  butter and sugar. Then I found few butter free recipes. But sugar was still there.

After few days of research I was left with no choice but to do little ‘hera pheri’ with the recipes and move ahead. I looked at those recipes and chose the most interesting one to go on with my experiment: Coffee and Walnut combo.

The original recipe was only butter free and fully loaded with cream. But due to the sake of being ‘Healthy Wealthy and Wise’ I made little changes. I replaced the sugar with honey, skipped the cream part completely, used less nuts and less oil. Even you can be one step ahead by replacing the grounded almond with whole wheat flour.

So what are we waiting for? If you are also in trouble due to your sweet tooth like me, it is the thing for you only. Here is the recipe of Butter Free Sugar Free Coffee Walnut Cake.

Preparation Time: 30 mins

Cooking Time: 40 mins (baking) + 5 mins (glazing)

Total Time: 1hr 15 mins

Yield: 6 wedges for serving 

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour : 225g + 1 tsp

Honey : 130g (See Tips)

Baking powder : 1 tsp

Grounded almond : 50g (See Tips)

Coffee granules : 1 tbsp + 1 tsp

Chopped walnut : 30g (See Tips)

Eggs : 2

Coffee flavored yogurt : 250g (See Tips)

Walnut oil : 75ml (See Tips)

For Glazing :

Coffee granules: 2 tsp

Caster sugar : 2 tbsp

Water : 4 tbsp

Walnut : 8-9

Preparation:

Sieve and sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside. Melt the coffee granules in 3 tbsp of warm water and keep aside. Beat the yogurt well in a separate bowl with a spoon. It should be lump free.

Take a large bowl and crack eggs in it. Beat the eggs with electric beater on medium low for 1 min or until foamy and pale. Pour the coffee mixture and beat for another 30 sec on medium-low speed. (See Tips)

Add honey and mix lightly with a spoon. Add oil and beaten curd and mix in a single direction to keep the aeration perfect.

Place the sieve on top of the bowl and resift the flour & baking powder mixture. Add chopped walnut along with grounded almond and continue mixing with a wooden spatula in the shape of ‘8’. It will not ruin the aeration which you just did with the electric beater. In the beginning it will seem to be impossible but be patient. Everything will incorporate slowly and will produce a smooth ribbon style pouring consistency batter. The batter should be lump free. Break and remix the lumps, if any forms. (See Tips)

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Grease the baking pan with little butter or oil and dust with 1 tsp of flour. Tap off the excess flour. I used a 9” nonstick baking pan. (See Tips)

Pour the cake batter into the pan. Level the top to smoothen with a spatula. Tap the pan few times on the kitchen counter to get rid of air bubbles inside the batter. Bake for 40-50 mins or until the skewer comes out with dry crumbles. Leave the cake inside the oven for 10 min more as standby and then transfer to wire rack to cool it off completely.

In the mean while prepare the Glaze.

Take a deep bottomed pan. Combine sugar and coffee granules in it. Add water and stir to dissolve the coffee. Heat the pan on medium flame and stir constantly and allow the sugar to dissolve completely. Once sugar is dissolved completely increase the flame to high and bring it to boil until thickened like syrup. Remove from flame and transfer to a small heatproof bowl and allow cooling a bit. Once cold the consistency should be ribbon like. Drop the walnut pieces into the syrup to coat well. (See Tips)

Now place the cake gently on the serving palate and pour the syrup over the cake and smoothly distribute and evenly cover the cake with the spatula. (See Tips)

Your healthy Butter Free Sugar Free Coffee Walnut Cake is ready to munch on or gulp down with a mug of coffee or hot chocolate or even with simple/flavored milk.

Tips:

1.  If you are not sure about the honey and ofcourse you don’t have any trouble with your waist-line use regular or brown sugar with equal quantity. I prefer mild sweetness so you can even increase the quantity by 1 or 2 tbsp.

2.  If you don’t want to use almond, use equal amount of whole wheat flour.

3.  You can use any other nuts according to your choice.

4.  If you don’t get coffee flavored yogurt make sure the yogurt is flavor free. Even you can replace with any flavorless or homemade yogurt.

5.  Any other flavor free oil can replace the walnut oil for this cake as we are giving it a walnut flavor.

6.  Don’t over mix the batter. It will produce a hard and solid base.

7.  Don’t allow the batter to sit idle for long. It will only harden the cake. For desired soft cake bake immediately after preparation.

8.  You can always use parchment paper line-in instead of greasing and dusting. As I used nonstick pan I dint opt for any of these.

9.  Keep an eye on the syrup while boiling and stiring continuously. It has a great tendency to burn quickly. And once burnt there is no way you can save it and then you have to start from the scratch again.

10.  You have to be very quick while pouring the syrup over the cake. Otherwise the cake will absorb the syrup before you could spread it out evenly.

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.

I am also submitting this recipe to http://www.foodiefriendsfriday.com for their Linky Party.