Rich But Not-So-Sinful Dark Chocolate Chip Cake with Healthier Substitutions

Okay, so our chocolate chips sunk to the bottom. It still tastes great with fewer fat and calories.

Each week, my husband and I bake up some kind of dessert and "allow" ourselves to have one modest-sized piece (or a couple of cookies or one cupcake or muffin, as the case may be) each day, usually after dinner. That way, we aren't completely depriving ourselves of sweets, but we're still controlling our portions and the amount of processed sugar we're consuming. Yep, we're among the common folk: always trying to either lose some weight or not gain it back.

At first, we'd just choose any old recipe that sounded and looked good, no matter how much ooey-gooey stuff was in it. Then we decided to try to slim down our desserts a bit by making substitutions, especially for the butter and the egg yolks.

So far, we've been really happy with the results. The consistencies and the flavors can be somewhat different than when using butter and yolks, but our desserts have still turned out really tasty, and we like knowing we're not eating as many calories or as much "bad fat." (Okay, so we've been having slightly larger helpings.)

This week, we sort of made up a cake, cheating just a bit by peeking at a basic white cake recipe to look at the proportions, then adding and substituting a few ingredients. This was the moist, yummy result....

Although I have sugar listed below, we've used Truvia as a substitute, which is a blend of cane sugar and stevia, and eventually tried just stevia alone to cut out the cane sugar altogether. You just have to be mindful of the proportions, because it takes less Truvia and MUCH less pure stevia to do the job. Too much and the cake won't be any good.

Also, if using just stevia, mix that well with the dry ingredients and then add the liquid ingredients.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 45-55 minutes

Serves: Depends how big you cut the pieces!

There are a lot more not-so-sinful desserts where ours came from. Here are a couple of good cookbooks focused on low fat and/or low sugar desserts.

First, from a well-recognized and respected organization, come more than 100 recipes for sweetness and richness without all the naughty stuff that will raise your cholesterol and pack on calories and fat.

Ever since we started using egg whites and applesauce instead of full eggs and butter, we've gotten interested in what else we can substitute in recipes, whether it's for health reasons or we just don't have that one last ingredient on hand to make something we've already started (our bad for not checking first) and don't want to drive down to the store. This is a handy reference for either of those occasions, as well as for hard-to-find items and cheaper alternatives to expensive ingredients. This book includes both food recipes and some for household cleaners.

So, tell me: Do you have a substitution for white sugar? What ingredient substitutions do you make to cut down on fat, sugar, calories ... or anything else you want to eat less of?

Please share your suggestions in the guestbook below.