Want to know more about our cake?

As the official sponsor of birthdays, the American Cancer Society wants you to have your cake and eat it, too, but we want to help you celebrate your birthday with a healthier twist. There are ways to lower the calories, fat, and sugar of more traditional birthday cake recipes—and still have a cake that tastes great that you want to share with family and friends.

Here’s what Alexandra did to make her recipe better for you than a traditional red velvet cake: First, she lowered the sugar and fat in the cake and the frosting:

Cake:

• She cut back the sugar to 1 cup, compared to 1.5-2.25 cups in traditional recipes.
• She also used much less fat.
• She cut the oil to .5 cup (compared to 1.5 cups found in many traditional recipes), and she added in applesauce to help replace moisture.
• She replaced one egg with two egg whites.

Frosting:

• She completely cut out the butter. (Many cream cheese frostings have 1-2 sticks of butter!)
• She used reduced-fat cream cheese in place of regular.
• She also cut powdered sugar to 1.25 cups, compared to the typical 3-4 cups!

She also looked for ways to boost the nutrients up a notch by using roasted beets (to give the cake that traditional beautiful red velvet color), using whole wheat and quinoa flour in place of some the refined white flour, and by adding dried cherries.

Check out below how one serving of Alexandra’s red velvet cake compares to a serving of a traditional red velvet cake—and notice how cutting your cake into smaller portion sizes can help you save even more calories, fat, and sugar.

If you slice the cake into 10 servings, approximately:

	Traditional	Ours
Calories	1010	650
Fat	67 grams	34 grams
Sugar	72 grams*	40 grams

If you slice the cake into 12 servings, approximately:

	Traditional	Ours
Calories	840	546
Fat	56 grams	29 grams
Sugar	61 grams*	34 grams

*The official birthday cake of the American Cancer Society contains an additional 11-13 grams of natural sugar from the vegetable and fruits that were added to the recipe.

Cakes are a central part of almost all birthday celebrations. As Alexandra says in her video, bake our cake at home and put your own spin on it. Then e-mail us to let us know about your take on our cake and what substitutions you made to make it even healthier.

Here are some ideas to get you started, along with how many calories and grams of fat and sugar you can save. All information is per serving:

• If you’re a fan of cupcakes, which help control portion size, try one cupcake with two tablespoons (2T) of frosting (the original recipe for it) with no ganache:
  155 calories, 19 grams of fat, 28 grams sugar
  
  
• If you make the cake without the ganache:
  10 servings: 570 calories, 28 grams fat, 41 grams sugar
  12 servings: 475 calories, 23 grams fat, 34 grams sugar
  
  
• If you make the cake with the ganache but change up the frosting to make it with half reduced fat cream cheese and half fat free cream cheese (instead of all reduced fat):
  10 servings: 550 calories, 29 grams fat, 45 grams sugar
  12 servings: 460 calories, 25 grams fat, 37 grams sugar
  
  
• If you want to save a few more calories and make cleanup easier, roast the beets without oil and wrapped in foil.

At the American Cancer Society, we think that another birthday is a triumph—something to celebrate in a special way. We hope you’ll make our cake—or your own version of it—and celebrate a world with more birthdays.