Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto - Low Fat Summer Berry Shortcake

In my continuing quest to live a healthy lifestyle and maintain my 60 pound weight loss, I am contantly trying to find new low fat recipes for sweets; my downfall and - I'm sure - the downfall of many of us. One of my go-to substitutions is angel food cake. Spongy, sticky and delicious it has way fewer calories of other cakes; two points per serving on my program. Angel food cake pairs beautifully with fruit and makes a great treat.

When I used to work in a professional kitchen as a gardemanger we used to make the most amazing strawberry shortcake. When I was in the grocery store the other day I found the sweetest individual angel food cakes and decided I needed a shortcake! I started playing in my kitchen, and this is the delicious result!

Low Fat Summer Berry Shortcake

1 kg (2.2 lb) mixed berries (you could use frozen if you like for the sauce, but get some fresh for garnish)
1/2 c white wine
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 c honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 mini packaged angel food cakes
2 individual vanilla pudding packs (4 oz each)

Put the fruit, wine and salt in a medium pot to cook over moderate to high heat until the alcohol burns off. Add the cinnamon, lemon and honey. Cook for 20-30 minutes until the sauce has reduced to be a bit syrupy.

In your dish layer a little of the fruit mix, torn up pieces of cake, then a layer of pudding (one pudding cup per layer in the dish I used). Repeat the layers until your dish is full (I got in two layers). Let the shortcake set up - covered - in the fridge for about four hours (or overnight); this gets better the more you let everything sink in together. Garnish with fresh fruit. Mine made 3-4 servings.
In lieu of the honey, you could use sugar, but I didn't have any at the time so I substituted with the honey. Also, I used a mini cassarole ramekin as I don't like having lots of sweets in my house, but the sauce makes enough that you could either have leftovers for topping yogurt, ice cream etc. or you could make one big dessert by just increasing the cake and pudding portions.