Raspberry Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Honey Frosting

Great Summer BBQ Cake!

So we were attending a Family Summer BBQ this past weekend and I said I would make my Spinach Dip as well as a dessert!  I wanted something fruity and summery but creamy like cheese cake too.  Couldn't decide.  I came across a raspberry cake recipe on pinterest and was inspired to make a basic raspberry cake.  But the one thing I always find when I make a cake is that everyone LOVES the cake but finds the icing too sweet... the funny thing is I hate using icing sugar and then when I do for something like a birthday cake everyone says it's so sweet.... maybe I have them trained really well! So this time I thought, I'm not using icing sugar I'm gonna make this work with Honey! 

I've made a few healthier icings now with no icing sugar like my Healthy Honey Frosting and Coconut Cream icing so I got to work! I knew I wanted cream cheese icing but once I added the honey into it, it became very runny.  So I decided to experiment with the coconut and do what I did when I made the Coconut Cream Icing!  This time I was able to get the coconut finer and I added Lemon Zest into it and lemon juice!  It turned out great!  

Gord took the left overs into work today and told me that the office was raving about my cake!  I gotta say I love to hear that!!  

Raspberry Honey Cake

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cup Honey
6 eggs, separated
4 cups all purpose flour (I usually use whole wheat flour in everything but did not in this cake, next time I will cause I'm pretty sure it would work well!)
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoon  sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups plain greek yogurt
2 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen

Directions

1. To make the cake, preheat your oven to 320F. grease and flour large cake pan or two round cake pans and set aside.
2. Cream the butter and Honey until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks in one at a time, mixing after each addition. 
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and mix until combined.  Add into butter and hone mixture a few spoonfuls at a time until mostly combined. Add the yogurt and mix until combined. 
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to medium peaks and then fold egg whites into the cake batter. 
5. Fold the raspberries into the cake batter.
6. Divide the batter evenly between 2 pans or into one large sheet cake pan like I used and bake 1 Hour for sheet cake, about 30 minutes for smaller cakes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. 
7. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 30 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
8. 
   

Lemon Zest!!  

Lemon Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut

2 lemons

2 packages of cream cheese

5 Tbsp Butter

1/2 Cup Honey

Directions 

1. In a food processor, add Coconut and process until it becomes very fine.  
2. Grate the lemon rind and set aside.  
3. Cut both lemons in half and add the lemon juice to the shredded coconut while it is processing. This will help the coconut become smoother and the flecks to become smaller
4. Add the Cream cheese and butter into a mixing bowl and cream them together. 
5. Add in the honey and mix to combine. 
6. Once all the lemon juice from both lemons has been squeezed into the coconut mixture add in the lemon zest and mix. Try to get the coconut as small as possible. 
7. Add the coconut and Lemon mixture into the cream cheese mixture and stir to combine. Check the consistency of the icing, if it's too thick add some more lemon juice and honey.  If it's too runny then process some more coconut to thicken it up.   
8. Once your frosting is at the consistency you desire, at this point you can either spread it onto the cake or put it in the fridge until the cake is cool enough.  
9. I put mine in the fridge for a while and it thickened up nicely.  Then once the cake was cool enough I spread it onto the cake and topped the cake with fresh raspberries and more lemon zest!

Raspberry Cake with Frosting!

Banana Bread Bars with Healthy Honey Frosting

This recipe is a favourite of ours but I tend to avoid making it purely because my old recipe called for a brown butter frosting which contained icing sugar.  #1 I hardly ever use any kind of processed sugar in my baking (just honey and maple syrup) and #2 the Banana bread bar recipe is a very clean recipe so it kills me to junk it up with icing sugar!

I've searched before but I decided to search again for ideas on how to make a icing sugar free Healthy frosting and I gathered a bunch of ideas!  You can check out that recipe here!  

Once I knew I could make this whole recipe 100% clean baked I started to make the Banana Bread Bar!

Banana Bread Bars with Healthy Honey Frosting

Ingredients

3/4 cup honey
1 cup full fat greek yogurt
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
2 eggs
3-4 mashed ripe bananas
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees
Grease an 8x8 baking pan with butter or coconut oil 
In a large bowl beat together wet ingredients.  
Add in dry ingredients, glen until incorporated. 

Spread batter evenly into pan and bake for 40-50 Minutes or until a knife comes out clean if stuck into the centre. 

Once cooled top with my Finally Healthy Honey Frosting!

Finally Healthy Honey Frosting

I have FOREVER been searching for a Healthy Frosting Recipe.  There are so many ways to make cakes, cupcakes, scones and muffins healthy but what is frusterating is that icing typically calls for icing SUGAR.  One thing I hate including in my baking is processed sugar.  I usually use only Honey or Maple Syrup. 

But I finally found one and modified it to what I had on hand so here you go! 

Finally Healthy Honey Frosting Recipe

Ingredients

•    1/2 cup Almond milk

•    1/2 cup honey

•    pinch celtic sea salt

•    3 teaspoons arrowroot powder or Corn Starch

•    1/2 tablespoon water

•    3/4 cup coconut oil

Instructions

•  In a medium saucepan, heat Almond milk, honey and salt, simmer for 10 minutes
• In a small bowl, combine arrowroot and water to form a smooth paste
• Pour arrowroot mixture into saucepan
• Whisk vigorously to combine, then bring to a boil, briefly, until shiny
• Remove pot from heat and very gradually blend in coconut oil with a hand blender

• Allow pot to cool for 10 minutes
• Place pot in refrigerator for 45-120 minutes, until frosting solidifies and turns white
• Remove from refrigerator and blend again with a hand blender, until fluffy
• Spread over cake or cupcakes

I used this recipe on my Banana Bread Bars, which have historically called for a Brown Butter Frosting.  I tend to skip past this recipe in my book because I dislike using frosting on an otherwise healthy bar.  But in this case I feel good about the whole recipe!