SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE WITH APPLE-DATE FILLING

OK, so when I saw this recipe in '1,001 low fat vegetarian recipes' by Sue Spitler, I was excited. Pretty simple recipe. I love apple and date combo, sold! I was reading the recipe and I turned to my mum and said " they forgot to put the coffee in the recipe!" her reply " not a coffee cake, it's like a tea cake, you eat it with coffee".  So very literal of me, but awesome cake.

Here we go, as low fat and low in sugar as I could manage with it still tasting amazing.

1/2 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

(this can be a little hard to find,
so you could always 

just stew a few apples with
no additives and use that)

1 cup of Stevia, granulated

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarb soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 cups of low fat sour cream

APPLE-DATE FILLING 

(I recommend doubling the apple-date filling)

1/2 cup of dried apples, coarse chop

1/4 cup of chopped and pitted dates

2/3 cup of water, minimum

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon of plain flour

1/4 teaspoon on nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of salt

CREAM CHEESE ICING

2 tablespoons of light/low fat cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1 cup of powdered/ icing sugar

APPLE-DATE FILLING

Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan, (or medium if you are doubling the recipe) and heat to boiling, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the apples are tender and the mixture is thick, 5 - 8 minutes. allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

Be Vigilant. are may need to add more water as you go, so that the apple-date mixture has enough time to soften on the stove top without boiling dry and burning the bottom of the pan. The resulting mixture should be thick and unctuous, not dry.


Pre-heat the oven to 170℃, spray/grease a baba cake tin  (12 cup capacity) with canola spray and dust with plain flour to make it non-stick.

• Beat the canola oil, applesauce, Stevia and brown sugar together in a large bowl until smooth
• Gradually beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then beat in the vanilla.
• In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking power, bicarb soda, cinnamon and salt. 

• Beat 1/3 of the flour mixture in to the wet mix.
• beat in 1/2 of the sour cream, then 1/3 of the flour, then the remainder of the sour cream finishing with the final 3rd of the flour. This ensures an even mix of the wet and dry ingredients.
• Spoon 1/3 of the cake batter into your prepared cake tin; top with 1/2 of the apple-date filling. Repeat the layering, ensuring you finish with cake batter.

Bake for approximately 1 hour, testing with a skewer. When the skewer comes out clean, (with no raw cake batter), remove the cake from the oven and cool in the tin for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes; remove the cake from the pan and cool to room temperature.
glaze the cake with the cream cheese icing.

 CREAM CHEESE ICING

Beat together the cream cheese and

sifted icing sugar until smooth.

Don't worry if it looks like
the icing is too dry, It isn't.
The liquid comes out of
the cream cheese and gives
you a beautifully creamy icing.
Justthe right amount to drape
over the top of the cake.