I'm Cold!

And that's all I can really think about at the moment, so alas, I have nothing witty to say. Or even remotely interesting. Have I mentioned that I'm cold? I thought it was supposed to warm up this week, but so far I'm still cold.

But making lemon ginger tea cake helped a little. So did the hot cup of (decaf) coffee I enjoyed with it. If you're cold too, wherever you are, maybe it will help you, too.

I originally saw this recipe in a magazine, but I changed it up quite a bit by reducing the sugar, eliminating the oil, adding applesauce and changing a few other things so that it now only barely resembles the original recipe. I like to think that my changes made it even better, but I can't say that for sure because I never actually tried the original. I do know that my first attempt flopped miserably, but my second attempt was delicious!

Lemon Ginger Tea Cake
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 TBSP oat bran
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 cup sugar
juice and zest of one lemon (or 1/4 tsp powdered lemon peel and 1/4 cup lemon juice)
3/4 cup plain, vanilla or lemon full-fat yogurt
1/2 cup applesauce
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1" piece of ginger, peeled and grated

Whisk the flours, oat bran, baking powder and soda, salt and powdered ginger in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Stir the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture until just combined. Pour the mixture into a greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Keeping the cake in the pan, cool it on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then carefully remove from pan and cool completely.

You can tweak this recipe to fit your own desires, but a few things are important to remember. Since the oil has been removed, there has to be some fat in the recipe, which, in my version, comes from the full-fat yogurt. Fat-free or low-fat yogurt will not work as well (that was my mistake in the first version). Also, you really can't reduce the sugar too much more, although I think honey would work well, at least for half the amount. (I would have tried the honey myself, but I'm out of it at the moment.) The original recipe called for corn meal instead of oat bran, and I just used the oat bran out of personal preference. Also, the original recipe called for poppy seeds, which I don't have and my DH can't have, so I did not use those. They would add a nice touch, though.

This recipe falls under the QUICK bread category, so yes, it's QUICK! You do have to take a few minutes to zest and juice the lemon, and then to peel and grate the ginger, but with the right tools, those tasks go quickly.

And, yes, it's EASY, now that I figured out the right proportions of certain ingredients!

It has a few "special" ingredients, like lemon and ginger (meaning they are not necessarily staples) and poppy seeds if you use them, but all in all, it's still CHEAP. Ginger, in fact, is very cheap, but it sure packs a punch! More bang for your buck.

And yes, this revised version is HEALTHY. I added some whole wheat flour and the oat bran for extra fiber (although corn meal surely has fiber as well, I think oats are more nutritious overall.). I also removed the vegetable oil and replaced it with applesauce, a much better choice. Furthermore I reduced the sugar. As I said before, honey would be an even better choice.  Lemon has vitamin C, and yogurt has great probiotics for your digestive tract.

Enjoy. And stay warm!