Lighter Sour Cream Pound Cake

The reader: Don Milburn, 66, electrical utility construction consultant, Great Falls, Virginia

The recipe: Sour Cream Pound Cake with Rum Glaze

The story: Don loves to cook and has always enjoyed the recipe for this cake, given to him by his mother. But he came to us for help because "all the old-time recipes never considered calories or fat content."

The dilemma: This cake was indeed heavy, weighed down by 2 1/2 sticks of butter and a cup of sour cream.

The solution: We didn't want to lose any lushness in the cake, so we only slightly decreased the amount of butter from 1 cup to 3/4 cup-cutting about 30 calories and 3 grams of fat from each slice. Switching to fat-free sour cream removed another 3 grams of fat from each serving. Using only 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter instead of 4 tablespoons for the glaze shaved almost 2 grams of fat per serving. To replace flavor lost in the glaze, we switched from granulated sugar to brown sugar, which has a rich, full caramel-like flavor.

The feedback: Don enjoyed our version so much that he made it for a family celebration. He didn't tell anyone in the family that it was a light adaptation, and "no one knew there was a difference."

BEFORE
(Serving size: 1 slice)

Calories per serving: 427
Fat: 19.4g
Percent of total calories: 41%

AFTER

Calories per serving: 325
Fat: 11g
Percent of total calories: 30%

View recipe: Sour Cream Pound Cake with Rum Glaze