This weekend, we celebrated Jasperfields’ 40th birthday! When we first started thinking about throwing her a party, I announced that I really wanted to make her a McDougally cake for her birthday.  Her favorite kind of cake is spice cake, so I quickly set about the business of locating a tasty recipe that could be feasibly mcdougallized. My first attempt was a recipe I found at fatfree.com for Applesauce Spice Cake. It used molassas and came out tasting more like gingerbread (even using a fraction of the suggested optional ginger) than a spice cake.  It was good though.  We’d definitely make it again as a denser gingerbread-like cake.

For my second attempt, I tried a recipe from cookiemadness.net for Vegan Spice Cake.  I had hope for this recipe from the start because the list of ingredients seemed like a perfect mix of flavors – and because it only required one substitution to make it McDougally.  I substituted 5 Tbsp of unsweetened applesauce for the 5 Tbsp of oil, and as I had hoped, the cake had a very nice flavor.  Our only complaint was that the spices were too mild.  We could tell it was the right mix of ingredients but we decided to try upping the amounts of most all the spices to see if we could give it a flavor more reminiscent of the spice cake Jasperfields has always loved so much.

We tinkered with the recipe a couple of times, to mixed results, and finally created an adapted version of the original recipe that was absolutely delicious.  By the time the finished product went onto the table at the party, I had baked a total of 7 spice cakes! But it was worth it because the cake was beautiful, tasty, a crowd pleaser and best of all, made the birthday girl happy.

Here is our adapted recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used oat)

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 heaping tsp cinnamon

1 heaping tsp ginger powder

(a bit less than the cinnamon)

3/4 tsp  allspice

3/4 tsp ground cloves                                         Directions:

3/4 tsp salt                                                          – Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract                                  -Make 3 wells and add vinegar, vanilla and

1 Tbsp vinegar (I used apple cider)                 applesauce in their own wells.

5 Tbsp unsweetened applesauce                     -Pour warm water over all and stir until just

1 cup warm water                                                combined. Do not overmix.

Pour batter into an 8 or 9 inch round baking dish that is lightly coated with non-stick spray (or use non-stick bakeware). Cook in oven preheated to 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cake to cool before removing from pan or applying frosting.

Frosting:

For this double layer cake, use 2 8oz packages of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese non-dairy spread.  Beat cream cheese in a bowl with electric mixer till soft.  Add 1 tsp of lemon juice and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.  Continue to beat with mixer as you add powdered sugar to desired sweetness.  For best results, refrigerate before applying to cake.

After completely coating cake with icing, dust the top with cinnamon and garnish with seasonal fresh berries. Serve and Enjoy!

Note: The cake itself is totally McDougally. The non-stick spray in the baking dish adds a trivial amount of fat but if non-stick bakeware is used instead, the cake is completely fat free and vegan.  The cream cheese icing, while vegan, is not fat free.  For a lower calorie option, the cake is wonderful without any icing or you could create a fat free glaze by simply omitting the cream cheese and mixing powdered sugar with lemon juice and vanilla extract.  I recently came across this recipe which suggests using strong coffee in place of the lemon juice – which I think would excellently compliment this spice cake – though I haven’t tried it out yet.