[BlessedBe]

Hello all! I was hoping to get some help with a recipe I want to cook for my family's Christmas party. I'm hoping there are some ways to substitute ingredients to make it healthier. I'm already going to use stevia instead of sugar, so I got that taken care of. Here's the recipe, and thanks in advance.

Apple-Pear Crumb Cake

1 apple, cored, diced
1 pear, cored, diced
2 Tbs. + 2/3 cup granulated suagr (using stevia for this)
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 pkg. (18.5oz) butter yellow cake mix (might see if I can find an organic version)
4 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
2/3 cup milk
3 cups flour (could I use whole wheat flour somehow?)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, melted
Confectioner's surgar, optional

[LindaT]

Instead of egg, I'd use egg whites

sugar - part splenda part sugar - sometimes you cannot sub all sugar out. It does contribute somthing to the texture of the dessert

sour cream - I'd use fat free. I personally cannot tell the difference in recipes. When eating it alone I can however. Some people can taste the difference so you'd have to try this yourself. If you aren't sure, maybe use part fat free and part low fat?

Milk - skim milk

Cake mix - allrecipes has cake mix recipes - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cake-Mi...ns/Detail.aspx you can play around with those to make things "healthier" as well.

Flour - whole wheat flour can make things tougher, denser and heavier and change the texture. If you want to sub part of this with whole wheat, probably would be okay but I wouldn't do all of it

Brown sugar - brown sugar splenda and brown sggar - again - don't sub all the sugar out

Butter - wel some people use prune puree or applesauce successfully. I've never tried that myself.

Leftovers? Send to 3FC people

[mandalinn82]

If you are going to sub in whole wheat flour, I'd recommend King Arthur White Whole Wheat. It's a lighter wheat variety, so it makes the texture difference a little less obvious. You might also consider finding a whole wheat pastry flour or cake flour, which will help with the texture as well.

[BlessedBe]

I think I can find some. I know of two health foode shops, a co-op, and Kroger doesn't have a bad health food section. So I'm sure I could find a pastry flour. Actually, I think I saw some the other day... I just know little to nothing about cooking, so I'd need exact measurements to work with. *looks embarassed*

[mandalinn82]

Well, you'd sub a whole wheat pastry flour cup for cup like the regular flour. Same with using a fruit puree for the fat...cup for cup.

Stevia can be tricky to sub since it is so STRONG. Depending what form of stevia you're using, it can mean you are replacing 1 cup of sugar with just a teaspoon of powdered stevia. Doing this can change the recipe significantly because you lose a cup of volume. There are some stevia blends for baking that resolve this problem and measure cup-for-cup like sugar. A stevia website makes this recommendation:

Please remember when cooking and baking with stevia that for every 1 cup of sugar that is replaced by stevia there should be 1/3 cup of a liquid or other “bulk” added to the recipe. The liquid is needed to create the bulk affect that the sugar normally would. A few liquid substitutions include:

Yogurt
Apple sauce
Apple butter
100% Fruit juice: apple, pineapple, grape etc.
Fruit puree
Egg whites
Water
Any liquid that pertains to the recipe will work just fine, for example, use extra banana puree for the liquid in a banana bread recipe.

[BlessedBe]

I could use apple juice, since the recipe uses an apple. Though I wonder if that would make the apple taste too strong... Oh well, water is always a good idea. Thanks for that. Maybe once they approve stevia for food use, as I heard they might do, they will allow those stevia cookbooks back on shevles.