A recipe from Patti LaBelle-- Blueberry Cake

Blueberry Cake
Patti LaBelle’s Lite Cuisine Copyright 2003

2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups fresh blueberries
4 tablespoons margarine, softened I used butter
1 ¼ cups sugar substitute such as DiabetiSweet or Splenda
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon butter-flavor extract
I used 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract instead of the lemon and butter-flavor
1 cup 1 percent low-fat buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-cup or 10-cup nonstick tube pan with fat-free cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Transfer ½ cup of the flour mixture to another medium bowl. Add the blueberries and toss to coat with flour mixture. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the margarine until light, about 1 minute. Beat in the sugar substitute and sugar until fluffy, 1 minute. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each addition. Beat in the lemon extract and butter-flavor extract. Beat in the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, beating for 30 seconds after each addition.

In a clean medium bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes. Fold into the batter. Fold in the blueberries. Scrape into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert onto a rack and cool completely.

Option: In a medium bowl, melt 1 ½ tablespoons reduced-calorie margarine in the microwave oven, about 30 seconds on medium. Whisk in 1 ½ tablespoons fat-free half-and-half and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Then whisk in ¾ cup sugar substitute such as DiabetiSweet or Splenda, and 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Drizzle evenly over the cooled cake. (I used butter, superSkim and vanilla)

Makes 14 servings. Per serving: 120 calories, 3 g pro, 18 g carbs, 4.5 g fat, 35 mg chol, less than 1 g fiber, 150 mg sodium
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There's no method to my madness. Whenever it's time to plan recipes, I just start pulling out cookbooks. It helps if I have something to focus on, such as a particular list of meats or ingredients that I already I have on hand. Last week, when it was time to select this week's recipes, I decided to focus on cookbooks that I haven't cooked from yet.

I've owned this cookbook for about a year. I'm not sure why I'm just now getting around to trying one of it's recipes. The recipes are pretty standard, but lightened up. Have you seen Patti LaBelle lately? She looks great. She must be doing something right.

The texture of this cake was excellent and the taste wasn't bad either but there's no gettting around the Splenda aftertaste. I wasn't in the mood for lemon so I left it out but that might have helped cut some of the aftertaste. It's something I'm getting used to but I only make something with Splenda every once and a while, so I don't think I'll ever get totally used to it.

Blast From The Past: Lemon-Blueberry Bundt Cake from July 2006. That's a another very good cake with the same flavors (and a larger cake - today's cake was quite small.)

Question of the Day: Do you have many cookbooks that you have never cooked from?