One day last week, I walked in the clinic and smelled cinnamon rolls – or what I thought was cinnamon rolls. It was actually cinnamon roll cake, but it smelled just like yeasted cinnamon rolls. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted to eat a small piece, but I could tell it was basically swimming in butter and sugar and I had just ate breakfast so I resisted…barely ;). However, as fate would have it, I spotted a recipe for cinnamon roll cake on Pinterest over the weekend and come Monday I was practically dying for something cinnamon-y =). I googled cinnamon roll cake and came to the conclusion that I’m a couple years late because cinnamon roll cake took the blog world by storm about 2 years ago…haha. Oh well. And basically everyone used exactly the same recipe. But I couldn’t get past the fact that it had three sticks of butter! I found it hard to believe that much butter was necessary. I didn’t set out to make a “healthy” cinnamon roll cake. I just wanted to reduce the butter to a slightly more reasonable amount. I decided to cut the butter in half and see what happened. I replaced half the butter in the cake with fat-free greek yogurt and just omitted half the butter in the filling. It was A-MAZING! I really don’t see how more butter could have made it any better. It’s still definitely dessert and definitely NOT health food ;). Enjoy!
Cinnamon Roll Cake
for the cake:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup skim milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp plain non-fat Greek yogurt
for the filling:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
for the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2-1/2 tbsp skim milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, whisk (by hand) together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. Whisk in milk, egg and vanilla until smooth. Whisk in the 2 tablespoons melted butter and yogurt. Pour batter into a greased 8 inch square baking pan.
3. Next, for the topping, mix the softened butter, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon until well combined. Drop evenly over cake batter by spoonfuls and use a knife to marble/swirl through the cake. Be careful not to over-swirl.
4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from center.
5. For the glaze, mix powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Whisk until smooth and pour over warm cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.
*adapted from Lovin’ From The Oven
Nutritional Info (1/9th of cake): 294 calories; 8.4 g fat; 51.2 g carbohydrates; 0.8 g fiber; 4.1 g protein
