Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: Why (Slightly) Healthy Cakes Don't Work

a) The consistency/texture is just not the same as a 'regular' cake.
b) The quantities for 'alternative' ingredients are less easy to judge.
c) They are not as visually appealing.
d) It doubles the chance of messing up the whole recipe.

So, what's the answer?

e) All of the above.

I've had my fair share of disastrous cakes. And my latest cake-up (ka-boom), which I hang my head in shame as I show you, has made me realise something...

No, that's not mouldy cheese

A little pattern amongst any cake-making errors I make. On each occasion, the cake was made because it seemed healthy - free of butter, flour or sugar. (Er, remember my sugar-and-butter-free apple cake disaster?) The one above is butter-free, and contains natural yogurt and a bit of vegetable oil. But what came out, as you can see, was what looked (and tasted like) congealed blocks of lard. Yum.

Then thinking about it again, I realised that I would want to omit flour, butter AND sugar to deem a cake to be truly healthy. And the Hungry Jenny cakes that have gone wrong only ever have one of these ingredients omitted in the attempt to be at least slightly healthy. But what's the point of that anyway? The attempt, yes, the attempt to be healthy is good news at least, you might say.

But not, I should point out, when they turn out like this:

"What's wrong with it, it's alright isn't it?" my sister asked.

"LOOK AT IT!" I screamed, pointing at the rest...

(I didn't really scream at my sister, I'm not a maniac)

The taste of this was not too bad actually, just overly soggy because it's got loads of eggs and carrots in it. I just kinda left it in the oven a bit too long and the non-stick tin failed me, leading to the burntness-and-dumping-onto-plate-situation.

You can probably tell that it's at this point that I stop caring about the presentation, because it's just not something to be proud of. I just had to take a photo because the situation is just laughable. I'm sorry if I hurt your eyes with it, I promise to post up a nice-looking cake to redeem myself soon (I hope).

So, you see - when you choose your path to baking a cake, there is no middle road - you go full fat all the way with your ingredients, or you make sensible healthy substitutes for everything, leaving no room for single bad ingredients to slip in.

I realise I'm probably not being entirely fair. Of course these mishaps are partly (well probably mostly) down to my own foolish baking tendencies. But a common thread has been found amongst my cake disasters and I just wanted to warn you now, because having to throw away an entire cake is not a good feeling.

Well, looking on the bright side, you're being healthy in that sense by not being able to eat any cake at all.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas?

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in