Banana Walnut Cake w/ Cream Cheese Glaze (reduced sugar +carb, GF)

Seriously guys, the BEST gluten free creation I’ve made to date–not to mention it is reduced carb! I’m obsessed, and I know you will be too!

 

Banana Walnut Cake w/ Cream Cheese Glaze (reduced sugar +carb, GF)

Ingredients (cake part)

1/2 cup canola oil (try 1/4 cup oil + 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce to reduce fat if desired)

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Domino Light (a sugar stevia blend)

1/4 cup water

2 eggs

2 large, ripe bananas–mashed 

1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or milk of choice)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup gluten free all-purpose flour (I used Bob’s Redmill)

1/2 cup +1tbsp almond flour/meal (I used Bob’s Redmill)

2 tbsp coconut flour (if you don’t have this just omit and increase almond flour to 1 cup +2 tbsp total)

2 tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup chopped walnuts 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and spray a round cake pan (9 inches) with cooking spray

2. In a medium bowl, add oil, Domino Light and water and beat on medium speed with electric mixer until light + airy (about 1-2 minutes)

3. Add in the eggs and mix on medium speed until incorporated

4. Add the banana, milk and vanilla and beat until well combined with electric mixer

5. In a separate bowl, whisk different flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices until uniform

6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with electric mixer on medium speed until well combined

7. Fold in walnuts

8. Pour into pan and bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown on top–always check to make sure tooth pick comes out clean from the center!

9. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan and frosting 

For the Cream Cheese Glaze

Need: 4oz (half block) reduced fat cream cheese, 3 tbsp powdered sugar, 3 tbsp half+half, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix: all ingredients together on medium speed with electric mixer until light and fluffy–refrigerate if not using right away

Put in on: Pour over the center of the banana cake spreading lightly with butter knife until some glaze runs over the sides 

Enjoy: just don’t have half the cake like I basically did-it’s a healthy version, but let’s not go cray!

goes great with some hot tea…I love Chocoate Yerba Mate

———————————————————————————————————————————

 Slowly but surely, I’ve been getting into strength training. This past weekend, I was able to do lower body on Saturday and upper body on Sunday. I was pooped today (literally could barely lift my shampoo bottle) so I just did an easy 40 minute walk on the treadmill (4.0 mph, 4% incline). Here’s the arm workout I did Sunday–I liked it because it didn’t utilize free weights which often bore me. The workout went back and forth between different types of pushups (on my knees!) and the assisted pull-up graviton machine.

15 regular pushups (I did knees)

12 regular pull-ups on graviton (I put weight at 100lb)

15 wide arm pushups (knees)

12 wide grip pull-ups on graviton

15 diamond hand pushups (knees)

12 triceps dips on graviton

15 regular pushups (knees)

12 inner-grip pull-ups (targets bicep) on graviton

–rest 5 minutes and repeat if you can! You can also repeat w/ half the reps if it is too much. To make more challenging, perform pushups on your toes and reduce the amount of weight on the graviton. 

If you don’t know what a graviton is–it looks like the image below. It’s a great machine that you can adjust to assist you less and less until you are able to perform pull-ups on your own (well, that may happen for some haha, not sure if that’s in my future!” 

The different hand placements allow you to target different muscle groups:

wide grip= back

regular= shoulders

inner parallel bars= biceps

lower side bars=triceps

 

Now it’s time to focus all of my attention on the Bachelor–I know, my life is rough 😉 Later this week I’ll post about my nutritionist appointment tomorrow to discuss a diet plan to regulate my increasing blood sugar. Since being diagnosed with PCOS this summer, insulin resistance is an issue for me and I’m going to need to make some changes–I’m happy to share whatever tips I get incase someone out there is in need of advice as well. 

Have a good night!