While reducing the fat in baking gets easier with time, especially after you practice with a few recipes and accept the possibility of failing every once in a while, you have to wonder how far you can push the limits. While there are fat free cakes, like angel food, the texture in those is decidedly different from that of a traditional cake, which you expect to be moist and tender, not airy. After much testing, cookbook author Sarah Philips, came up with a whole book of all-natural, low fat recipes (The Healthy Oven Baking Book). This cake is a variation on one of the recipes from that book - and it has almost no fat.

Fat serves several important functions in baking, which I have mentioned before. Primarily, fats add moisture and tenderness, preventing the final product from being dense, gummy or dry and hard. If you have ever tried baking a non-fat cake recipe, or tried to create on by substituting something in place of the fat, you already know that those are distinct possibilities of very low fat, or fat free, baking.

This recipe takes a couple of steps to avoid running into problems like those. It uses a very small amount of oil and a whole egg. The yolk, since it is mostly fat, has the same tenderizing effect as the oil, and the egg white adds structure, preventing the cake from being too dense. The applesauce and even the apple chunks contribute a lot of moisture to the recipe.

The final step that Sarah has taken to avoid the pitfalls so often encountered by low fat bakers is to use whole wheat pastry flour instead a plain all-purpose flour. Not only does this flour give you all the benefits of whole grains, upping the nutritional content of the cake, but the flour has a texture that is very similar to all-purpose flour. It does not have the heaviness that is associated with regular whole wheat flour (which is not a good substitution) and because it has a relatively low gluten content, it is slightly less likely to produce gummy baked goods in low fat baking.

The cake itself is very good. It is very moist and has something of an addictive quality about it, so it's a good thing that it is so low in fat. All of the tricks that the author used to avoid denseness, gumminess and toughness worked well, because the cake is none of those things. The spice combination used reminds me distinctly of apple pie, with a slight nuttiness from the whole wheat pastry flour rounding out the flavors. I like it for breakfast or with coffee, but it could be served for dessert, too, perhaps with a small scoop of (low fat) ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Apple Spice Ring
(adapted from The Healthy Oven Baking Book)

1-1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup fresh apple juice or water
3 tbsp packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3-1/2 cup diced, peeled apple (about 1 apple)

Preheat oven to 350F.
Lightly grease a 6-cup bundt pan (8-in)
In a large bowl, stir together whole wheat pastry flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg.
In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together applesauce, apple juice/water, sugar, egg, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Pour into the bowl containing the dry ingredients and stir until almost combined, with some small streaks of flour still visible. Stir in the apple chunks and continue mixing only until no flour remains visible. Do not overmix.
Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until the top of the cake springs back when pressed gently and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Place pan on a wire rack to cool completely. Invert cake onto a serving platter when ready to serve.
Makes 1 cake; serves 10.