Back in October (was it that long ago?) I posted a list of links to healthy, low-calorie desserts and said I would make them and see if they would work for my calorie deficit diet:

Are you Deserting Dessert???… (No dessert for me!) (publish0x.com)

So far, I've made the sorbet and the Greek yogurt brownies. I am very lukewarm about the sorbet because it seemed way too sweet for me. I'm a HUGE fan of the Greek yogurt brownies. Those are definitely worth adding to your diet dessert rotation. In fact, I made a batch to bring to our family game night today.

Today I decided to make the "Low-Fat Apple Cake." It's one of the recipes in the post that I linked above.

Healthy Apple Cake (No Butter or Oil) | As Easy As Apple Pie

I was excited to make this cake and bring it to our family game night to see if people liked it, because having a dessert that you can bring to gatherings that you can eat, prevents you from having to refuse dessert and watch everyone else enjoy theirs.

I went to get the bag of Granny Smith apples I bought from the garage refrigerator. As soon as I picked it up, I remembered that we had originally turned the refrigerator temperature up too high so a lot of things in the refrigerator were somewhat frozen. We had fixed this issue, but I now had apples that had been frozen, and I could tell from the way they felt as they felt a little soft, like the insides had melted. They weren't brown or had gone bad. It was weird, for sure, and I had no idea how that was going to impact this cake.

I made some changes to the recipe. I used 400 grams of peeled, cored and apples, I made a liquid milk (I know that sounds weird) using non-fat dried milk and water, and I substituted Stevia for the sugar. I used white flour because I just didn't think about using whole wheat flour.  Oh, I almost forgot one last thing. I had lemon juice but not lemons so I tossed the apples in lemon juice and cinnamon because I read somewhere on the recipe page that you could substitute spices for the lemon zest. 

Okay... you have to sift the flour.... sigh... My hand sifter was 8 feet off the ground on the top shelf of a cabinet because I can't remember the last time I had to sift flour.  That required me to go find stick thingy with the pinchers on the end that I use to grab stuff from high places (another life hack thingy I love and recommend). Of course, the stick thingy wasn't where I usually leave it, so now I'm searching the house in the middle of this baking activity.  When I didn't find it in the garage, I gave up and called the hubby to get the sifter (which was stupid because he is only six feet tall, and he was going to need the step ladder that I could have used anyway...) Luckily, all he heard me say was that I couldn't find the stick thingy, so he decided to look for that instead. Ironically, he who can't find the thing he's looking for that's in front of his face, found it in our bedroom closet. I was sure it was in the garage because I envisioned me (falsely) using it to drag holiday decorations down the day before. 

Hubby hands me the stick thingy and asks me if I want him to get the sifter down.... Nope, babe, I got it, that's what this gem is for. So easy to pinch the handle and lift it down. Now I'm sifting, squeezing the handle of the sifter to do this (lucky I don't have arthritis yet in my hands), and luckily, it's only a cup, so it doesn't take long. Notice in the photo that I weighed the flour rather than measured it by the cup. I was anxious about using too much flour because it was packed down.

The first thing I noticed when I mixed the Stevia and the eggs was that the mixture did not get thick per what the recipe claimed would happen (remember the recipe called for sugar). This could be because I didn't mix it long enough or just because of the properties of Stevia, so I don't have an answer for that.

The recipe creator was correct when she said there would not be too many apples. Even with my less than puffy batter they all mixed in pretty well. I was very 'precise' about using 2/3rds of the apples for the batter. I weighed them and reserved 1/3 of the apples for the top of the cake and to be honest, it was pretty exact. I had just enough slices to cover the top:

That white stuff around the dish is flour. I took the greasing and flouring the dish step seriously because I had no idea how much the cake would rise, and I didn't want it to stick.  I think that is an eight or nine inch baking dish. Note that this dish is deeper than a normal glass pie dish. The cake did not rise much at all. 

I baked it for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. The recipe says to set it at 356 degrees but I don't think ovens made for residential use in the US can be that precise in setting temperatures.  I put it in for 30 minutes and the cake tester came out clean when I took it out.  

This is what it looks like after baking:

I thought it tasted really good, for a dessert with no sugar. I think this one is a keeper. It was moist and not really that 'cake-y.'  The fruit wasn't too mushy. My mother-in-law, who thought I'd made a pie, said it didn't have a lot of liquid in it. Since she was expecting pie filling consistency from a pie, I did not take this as criticism.  When I explained, she understood, and ate the whole piece she took. My husband thought it was good. 

UPDATE: I forgot to weigh the dish before baking so I could not do an accurate calorie count until I could weigh it empty.  Here is the calorie count of my ingredients:

Non-fat dried milk: 20 Calories

400 grams of apples 208 calories

Flour 440 calories

2 eggs, 160 calories

Stevia, 0 calories

The calorie count for the entire cake is 828 calories. My cake weighed 651 grams. 

If you divide the cake into 6 servings of about 108 grams, then each serving is roughly 138 calories.

If you divide the cake into eight servings of about 81 grams, then each serving is roughly 104 calories. 

This apple cake, the way I made it, is a winner and can definitely be added to the calorie deficit friendly dessert rotation!

And now I have a Greek Yogurt Brownie Update:

Remember this post where I made those brownies?

Those Low-Calorie Greek Yogurt Brownies (Yep, I made them….) (publish0x.com)

I made these again today, right after the apple cake.   Okay, so.... I wasn't reading the instructions carefully and I screwed up. I saw "mix all the dry ingredients" and ran with that. I forgot that Stevia wasn't considered a 'dry' ingredient. It is supposed to get mixed with the Greek Yogurt. I didn't do that this time. Wet stuff went in the stand mixer bowl, dry stuff went into a separate mixing bowl to be later added to the stand mixer bowl. 

I also realized why I see people adding coconut oil to melting chocolate. I think it keeps it from sticking to the bowl and keeps it more liquid-y. I will do that next time. This time, I melted the chocolate and then added it to the Greek Yogurt already in my stand mixer. I think this worked better than what I did before. Unfortunately, melted chocolate got all over my hand... my pjs (don't judge me...it's Saturday....) the counter... and somehow the underside of my forearm.

Then I slowly incorporated the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in the stand mixer. Remember in the original post I said it looked like cookies and cream ice cream? The mixture looked more like brownie batter this time. I think because the melted chocolate didn't harden as much before I added the dry ingredients as it did last time. 

The only other change I made was to add an extra 1/8th of a cup of Stevia. Remember I mentioned they could have been a bit sweeter? I baked them for 35 minutes and they came out NICE. Maybe a little more Stevia could be added but these are better than the last batch.  So, my mistake in mixing everything really didn't matter.  

I was excited for my family to try these brownies, but I was blindsided by an issue that I don't seem to have with food. Texture. I loved these brownies because they are light and fluffy and not dry at all. They are also not like flat, chewy brownies. My sister-in-law hates mushy bread. Guess what? These brownies are cake-like and soft, rather than chewy, so their texture didn't appeal to her, although she said the faint sweetness was good.  I didn't add the chocolate chips so maybe that had an impact on the consistency. 

I guess since I've always focused on feeling full, food texture (except slimy food) isn't a thing with me.  To me, these brownies were light, fluffy and wonderfully chocolate without being overly sweet.  I stand by these as they are.

Remember: Don't desert dessert!