Peaches and Cream Cake

A couple of weeks ago my parents came out to stay with us for the weekend. Both my husband and I were running in a race on Saturday morning (he ran in the 25k and I just stuck with the 10k) and we needed someone to watch Finley while we were hitting the pavement. My parents jumped at the opportunity to watch their little granddaughter and said they had been wanting to watch us run a race for a while now. Do they know how not-exciting it is to stand around in the cold rain waiting 50 minutes for me to run by? Oh well, they learned....

Anyway, this race also happened to fall on my mom's birthday. My mom is always trying to stay healthy and avoid sweets so I didn't want to make her a traditional birthday cake. Then I found this recipe for Peaches and Cream Cake on Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I don't know about you but since it had fruit in it, I automatically thought this must be healthy ;)

I made a few minor adjustments to the cake. First, I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. This actually give it a nutty taste that was quite delicious. Next, I used reduced fat instead of full fat cream cheese and made sure to use skim milk in the recipe. I also only used about 3 Tbsp of melted butter instead of six. I also sprinkled the top with straight cinnamon instead of cinnamon sugar. The original recipe also states that it serves 12. I easily cut this into 24 GENEROUS dessert portions.

The original recipe provides per 1/12 serving:

415 calories
20.6 g fat
53.1 g carbohydrate
1.2 g fiber
6.6 g protein

It was delicious! Of course the 4 of us couldn't polish off the whole pan so I plated up the leftovers to bring to our small group Bible study the next night.... shhhhh..... don't tell.

Peaches and Cream Cake - BETTER

Cake:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup skim milk
3 Tbsp butter, melted

Peaches and Topping:
29-oz can sliced peaches in own juice or 1 quart home-bottled peaches
16 oz (2 pkg) reduced fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
6 Tbsp reserved peach juice
1 tsp cinnamon for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium or large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cornstarch. Blend. Make a well in the center and add the vanilla, eggs, milk and melted butter. Whisk together until well combined. Spread the better evenly in the prepared pan.

Slice the peaches into bite size pieces, scattering them over the top of the batter evenly. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and reserved peach juice together until light and creamy. Dollop the cream cheese mixture in tablespoon-sized spoonfuls over the top of the batter and peaches and then use a spatula to evenly spread together to form a creamy layer. It won't spread perfectly, don't worry. Sprinkle the top of the cream cheese layer generously with cinnamon.

Bake 45-60 minutes until the edges are puffed and golden and the cream cheese layer has bubbled slightly on top. If the middle is still jiggly, bake it until it no longer jiggles.

Makes 24 servings. Per serving:

168 calories 6.5 g fat 25 g carbohydrate 1.2 g fiber 3.9 g protein