Honey, I shrunk the calories!

Cool cake on a rack for 30-60 minutes.

Sometimes I want a dessert, and I don’t want something “diet” or “lite.” I want real flavor. While watching an old episode of Good Eats (Alton Brown) called “Comb Alone,” I wrote down one of his recipes for orange cake that used honey instead of refined sugar. I modified it a bit (Don’t I always?) and liked the results. So with apologies to AB, here is my version of his orange cake. Because he uses honey, it has less sugar and no fat (no sugar creamed butter with this cake recipe). I generously butter my Bundt pan because that’s the only fat added to this recipe. Finally, I use egg substitute to lower the calories from the 4 whole eggs he uses. It didn’t seem to hurt the cake, and it’s a sneaky way to lower the calories and cholesterol a bit more. But feel free to make this using 4 eggs.

This cake recipe qualifies as hasty tasty because combining the equivalent of 4 eggs with honey is faster than creaming sugar with butter then adding the eggs one at a time until each is incorporated. Before this cake finished baking, I had the kitchen cleaned and glaze ready and refrigerated.

RECIPE

HONEY ORANGE CAKE
Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix together 1 cup raw honey (I used orange blossom), 2 whole eggs and 1/2 cup Egg Beaters®.
Measure out 1½ cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1/8 teaspoon baking soda. Zest one orange (just the orange part. Avoid the white). Set aside.
Using unsalted butter or coconut oil, generously grease a loaf pan or small Bundt pan.
Gradually add the dry mixture to the eggs and honey. Stir in the zest of one orange. Do not overwork the batter.
Pour batter into pan and bake 30 minutes.
Check for doneness. If toothpick doesn’t release clean, bake another 5 minutes and check again.
Cool cake on a rack for at least 30 minutes. An hour is better.

Optional glaze:
Juice the orange and mix it with 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar to make a glaze. Pour the glaze over the cake when cake is cooled completely.

Yield: 8 servings.