Gimme Some Sugar!

It is really, really hard to make a good cake without sugar!  But, my friend Alissa's mom is diabetic.  Not just kinda-try-not-to-drink-soda diabetic, but fridge-full-of-insulin diabetic.  So when Alissa asked me to bake her mom's birthday cake, sugar was totally off limits. 

Sure, Splenda is an option, but it changes the chemistry of the recipe.  It's better to use half sugar & half Splenda, but that wasn't an option.  So, I added some buttermilk for a leavening boost and the cake turned out pretty good, just a little more dense than usual.  To lighten it up, I spread sugar free chocolate pudding in between the layers. Frosting though, was another story since powdered sugar is the key ingredient in almost every type.

Most of the diabetic recipes I looked to recommended either simply using half the normal sugar in a recipe (gee, thanks for nothing!) or frosting a cake with Cool Whip.  Gag.  Cool Whip is 100% synthetic, I can't do it.  I cringe just thinking of how Cool Whip feels on the roof of my mouth.  So I whipped up an improvised caramel cream cheese frosting.  To pretty it up, I added a ring of chopped pecans and drizzled on some the sugar free caramel syrup I used to sweeten the frosting.  I was really surprised at how good it was.  There were 2 other cakes at the party, both from a popular local bakery, and no one even touched them.  Everyone had a slice of the sugar free cake!  

*In case you missed it, the recipe was posted in the comments!