Cut down my Cake Intake

Most of everyone knows me well enough to know I love two things.

The first being anything Purple, the second is Cake. {Purple cake would make me squeal like a 12 year old}

I make a cake about once every three weeks. but with my diet i am trying not to eat the HUGE portions I used to. So now that I have started cutting back and eating smaller portions, I have had to do something that well makes me cry...

THROW CAKE AWAY! :(

My sister tells me that she has a smaller recipe for cake it only makes enough for an 8x8 pan. But I don't make my cakes from scratch. Frankly a quick and easy cake mix is just nice.

But it makes a 9x13 sheet. and I'm throwing maybe a third away. So I have decided to try to cut the recipe in half.....

Lets take your ordinary Cake mix....


Lets look at the side panel.....


OOOOHHHHHHH Cake bad!

12 servings per box...
270 calories per serving.......... yea PER SERVING!!!

If you make the whole thing how many servings does a family of three eat?? that's 4 servings if everyone gets their share... thats 1,080 calories one person gets... WOW no wonder I'm fat, errr I mean, over weight.

Now there are lots of ways you can "fix" a cake mix add applesauce instead of oil to make it "healthier". I have tried making the cake healthier, that just give me PERMISSION to eat more cake... no help there. Making junk food into health food just seems as smart to me as a diet coke with a banana split.. why bother??

This is what I'm trying to do. I am trying to eat all the same stuff just TEACH myself I don't need the whole cake.

so step one is lets make a smaller cake smaller cake means either smaller slices or less helpings it also gets rid of that "OH! I better eat that before it spoils!"

So lets look at the recipe and see if its possible.....

All the water and the oil split nicely but it called for 3 eggs.... I cant split an egg... so I'm just going to eliminate one egg and see how it works. Once upon a time I remember cake mixes only needing 2 eggs... WHEN DID WE START ADDING 3???

So as you can see I have a zippy bag with the amounts of what I need to add to it written in sharpie on the outside... I also needed to write what it is and baking instructions on the bag as well....

How much is in a cake mix box?? Well cup for cup I measured. It turns out to be about 4 cups per box, give or take a smidge.

Here is Michelle with the "second" cake mix....

mix mix mix


After its baked
It looks good....


Peanut Butter frosting
is Steve's favorite


And I have cut it into 12 equal pieces
{well before we each had a piece}

So my conclusion 12 pieces per serving according to the box is 270 calories/serving since tghis is only 1/2 of the cake mix and cut into 12 servings, so these servings must be 1/2 the size that the accounted for since I only have 1/2 the cake. So it "should" be 135 calories per serving. without the frosting of course...

What am I learning from this? In time having these small pieces will enable me to eat cake ANYWHERE and still stick to this diet. I will recognize a 170 calorie slice as a proper serving size for ME .

That also means that per month the amount of calories I will ingest from this cake went from 1,080 cal to 540. IF I only eat my share I have cut out 540 calories a month!

But I can still have cake and be thin. THAT, my friend, is the GOAL.

OH one more thing.... TASTED AWESOME!!!