Mocha Cake

Ingredients

• Pam, or other cooking spray
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbp canola oil
• 2 tbp melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 banana
• 3/4 cup lowfat yoghurt
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbp espresso
• 2 oz. good-quality dark chocolate

For the frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp espresso

1 small square chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put oven rack in center position.
Spray a 9x13 cake pan with Pam and set aside.
Whisk together flours, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and oil. Add eggs and banana and mix to incorporate.
Fold in yoghurt, ricotta, vanilla, sugar, and espresso. Melt chocolate and add chocolate.
Gradually add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. DO NOT OVERBEAT.
Pour batter into pan and put in oven. Let bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.
While cake is cooling, make frosting:
combine all ingredients into a bowl and beat until soft and creamy. Spread frosting over cake and cut into 32 squares. Shave chocolate over the entire cake. Each square = 100 calories. Not bad.

Thoughts: This was an ok recipe. The original called for 2 eggs and 2 egg whites rather than 2 eggs and 1 banana, but I think the banana worked out ok. The original also calls for 1.5 cups lowfat yoghurt rather than half yoghurt and half ricotta. If you were going to make this recipe, I would make sure you had all the ingredients before trying to make it. Substitutions can be risky.
Make sure you cover this cake immediately because it dries out quickly in the fridge. It was pretty tasty, all taken. I'll let people qualify my remarks as they see fit.

Disaster Index: 3-4/10.