Embracing a Healthy Family: SPLENDA® Brand Summertime Sweet Life In-Home SWEET SWAPS™ Holiday Strawberry Cream Cheese Cake Roll

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for the SPLENDA^® Brand. I received product samples to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation. All opinions and reviews are my own.

Can you believe summer is already upon us? It's not officially summer but it certainly feels like it with the hot humid weather here in Georgia. As when the summer months come, new recipes come to mind with all the fresh fruit and vegetables. As I look to the summer, I want to find recipes that will allow me to swap out sugar for a lower calorie option. This is where SPLENDA^® Sweetener Products come into my house. Instead of using full sugar, why not swap out for SPLENDA^® Sweetener Products? It's still great tasting but easy on the calories. There are many products offered such as SPLENDA^® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated, SPLENDA^®Sugar Blend, and SPLENDA^® Brown Sugar Blend. It's a great way to lessen those calories while visiting SWEET SWAPS™ to try out some great recipes to satisfy the biggest sweet tooth.

As part of our kicking off summer activities, we invited family and friends out to camp and hike as what better light activity than to walk in nature? Since the younger one's couldn't hike much, we had to break up in two groups and have my sister watch them. After our walk, we stopped to eat and then we had some sweet fun using the SWEET SWAPS™ Holiday Cake Roll recipe mostly because it's a favorite with my youngest and I've yet to master one. There really isn't any better excuse than to get friends and family together for fun and food!

Now for the fun part, I've learned that making cake rolls are tricky, in my opinion, as you have to make sure you don't crack it when you roll it. Our creation will be the Strawberries and Cream Cake Roll Recipe. My almost eight year wanted to help make it as she loves strawberries and she also wanted to be the hostess for serving up the Holiday Cake Roll at our get together. It all looked easy enough and it was smooth sailing but albeit, I found out that I have not mastered the rolling of the cake.

Our after activity was a success. Those that liked strawberries and cream cheese loved it and no one knew I replaced sugar with SPLENDA^®! Given that my one guest, Kristin, was watching calories, this was ideal for her. I have to say that I love that I can create recipes with less calories while not sacrificing taste and with SWEET SWAPS™ recipes, I have a great database to choose from! There are many more tips, tricks and amazing looking recipes on SweetSwaps.com. Did you know that swapping just one cup of sugar with one cup of SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated can save more than 600 calories? (

For those of you that want to try it yourself, here is the recipe:

Strawberries and Cream Cake Roll Recipe

Servings Per Recipe: 10

Serving Size: 1 slice (1/10 cake)

INGREDIENTS

4 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup SPLENDA^® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated, divided
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup light corn syrup
2/3 cup sifted cake flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 (8 ounce) carton frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 pint strawberries, sliced

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375ºF.
Grease bottom and sides of a 15x10x1-inch jellyroll pan; line pan with waxed paper; grease and flour waxed paper. Set aside.
Beat egg yolks at high speed of an electric mixer until thick and pale; gradually add 1/3 cup SPLENDA^®No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated, beating constantly. Stir in oil and vanilla extract.
Whip egg whites at high speed until foamy; gradually add remaining 1/3 cup SPLENDA^® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated, and corn syrup, beating until stiff but not dry. Fold beaten egg whites into egg yolk mixture.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; gradually fold into egg mixture. Spoon batter into prepared pan; spread batter evenly.
Bake for 10 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in center.
Sift 2 tablespoons powdered sugar on a cloth towel. Loosen cake from sides of pan using a narrow metal spatula and immediately turn out onto sugared towel. Starting at narrow end, roll cake and towel together tightly; cool 30 minutes on a wire rack seam side down.
Unroll cake and remove towel. Spread with whipped topping; spoon strawberries over topping; carefully, reroll. Place on a serving plate, seam side down. Chill 2 hours before serving.