Sugar Free Chocolate Orange Cake Treats

One of my newer family traditions is to come up with a new recipe every year on my birthday for my Uncle Lamar. He was diagnosed a few years ago with diabetes.  Last year it was Banana Chocolate Bread which he doled out to himself a sliver at a time. 

This year, it's chocolate orange cake filled with a coffee cream cheese icing. If you want to substitute sugar you can. 

I made the cake in my sandwich maker because my oven still isn't fixed. Mike's just started a new job a couple weeks ago and just hasn't had the time. 

Baking cake in a sandwich maker? It's like Easy Bake but for grown-ups. 

For the cake:

Chocolate Orange Cake-

Dust off the sandwich maker you never use. Wipe it out very clean. Make sure the non-stick surface is intact.

Dry ingredients- 

1 cup Splenda or similar measures like sugar sweetener

1 cup flour- I used my usual whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Mix dry ingredients well

Wet ingredients-

1 egg or equivalent egg substitute

1/4 cup melted butter (you could use oil, but I like the richness butter gives sugar free recipes), I used salted so didn't add salt to the dry ingredients

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. orange peel or orange zest. Adjust to taste. I used dried orange peel because it's convenient

1 tsp vanilla (everything is better with vanilla)

Mix wet ingredients well

Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well. The batter is fluffier with Splenda. it's sort of weird to work with. Just trust it will all work out okay.

Heat up your sandwich maker and put a 1/4 cup of batter in each well. Close it. Because it's non-stick it doesn't need to be buttered or greased.

Check after 3 minutes with a toothpick, if the tooth pick comes out clean, it's done. Otherwise check about every minute. It doesn't take long at all to bake cake in a sandwich maker.

Keep making cakes until you've used all the batter.

Frosting/filling

1 8 oz package of cream cheese

1 cup Splenda

1/3 cup of coffee

The Splenda might foam a bit. Mine did. This stuff is so weird to work with. 

Beat well until it's fairly smooth and fluffy. 

Cut each triangle cake in half, spoon in some frosting to make a sandwich. Wrap in plastic wrap individually and chill.

My daughter and husband both tried it and declared it a success, and in fact didn't hesitate to lick the frosting beaters.

I'll let you know what my Uncle Lamar thinks of them!