Tag Archives: low sugar

Decadent Milo Layer Cake

I’m looking for guest posts once again! The guest post can be a recipe post, a “tips” on how to bake/cook something post or a nutrition related post. Just email it to qiting93@hotmail.com and I’ll get it up and going!

Warning: please do not read if you’re very prone to depression or to having suicidal thoughts. Scroll to the bottom for the recipe.

Sometimes, the person who seems to be happiest on the outside is the most depressed. Sometimes, the person who seems most patient on the outside is the angriest. Sometimes, the person who seems most outgoing is actually the most inconfident and lonely. Its sad, but its the truth.

even if you don't feel like dancing at all.
even if you don’t feel like dancing at all.

It all goes really well.

You learn to deal with it.

Hiding the pain becomes easy. When someone says something that hurts, you get used feeling the pain, hiding it inside and not letting it show at all. You learn to smile when someone says something or does something that hurts. They don’t know that what they say can hurt. You don’t want them to know. Until one day, you can’t take it anymore. The suppressing gives you headaches. Your depression is getting out of hand. Suicidal thoughts surface more often than ever before. You learn that suppression isn’t the answer to everything. You find it hard to smile a real smile or to genuinely find something funny. You remember the 5 years that you couldn’t smile at all. You don’t want it to happen again.

One of the troubles I’m having with this is this friend of mine. (I have no idea how I keep becoming close friends with people detrimental to my mental and emotional health but it keeps happening– somebody stop me please!!)

We are supposedly close. At least she thinks we are close. Because she’s able to share all her troubles with me and I’ll try to be really helpful and help her all I can. But the thing is, I’m never able to tell her anything because she’ll always turn the focus to her in the end. Say, if I’m having a bad day, I’ll be so happy to see her because yay, finally a friend in sight, and I’ll say “I’m having a bad day. This morning, blah blah blah happened…” and she’ll stop me mid sentence, saying “I’m so happy today! I had a bad day too last week and I’m still reeling in its effects though. A couple of my friends were so nice to me and…” In short, she’lll totally ignore me and shift the conversation to herself.

Every. Damned. Time.

And she wonders why I always seem happy. Hey friend?! Maybe its because you never bother to listen at all??!! I hate always being the comforter and never the “comfortee”.

"I'm always there for you, for every silly little detail of your life. 
But when I need you, you couldn't care less."

I tried to tell her this once, to finally share with her how I feel and this is how the damned conversation went.

(After she tells me about how she was sad that a friend did not talk to her for three days and was it her fault? What did she do wrong? And me saying he was probably busy, don’t think too much about it alright and blah blah blah because that’s all she’ll let me do.)

Me: Hey, you know I’m not actually not as happy as you think I am. I do have troubles too.

Her: Then why don’t you tell me about them?

Me: I always try but you always don’t listen and change the subject!

Her: Really? Maybe I didn’t know you were trying to tell me something! Maybe you should be more clear about it.

Me: Okaaaaaayyyyy…. I’ll try. So, um, these couple of days have been really bad for me…

Her: It’s been horrible for me too! You know, I had a meeting with my project group just now… (proceeds to tell me about her “misery” for the next 10 minutes and ignores me yet again)

As you can imagine, every conversation I have with her has become me screaming on the inside the whole time. The other times, she keeps telling me that she has the worst life ever when she’s actually freaking lucky. Her mother loves her and dotes on her like crazy. She hates peanuts and her family make damn sure not even half a peanut appears on her plate, as do the hundreds of other food she refuses to eat. When she has troubles, she has at least five friends who will listen to her troubles. She has never been through an illness worse than a flu, contracted any disease, is as fit as a fiddle, and aside from a false lack of confidence (she actually has tons of confidence. You need a lot of confidence to believe tons of people enjoy listening to you whine about how horrible or awesome your life is), has had a smooth sailing life. Yes she has been bullied, but even when she was, she still had at least 10 friends behind her during then, so she said after interrupting me when I was saying how horrible my childhood was, which really is terrible to the max, and you’ll know if you read my other posts. In other words, she wants everyone to think her life is horrible though at the same time, she’s trying to make sure everyone knows how terrific it is. When a friend has troubles, she pretends she can’t hear them or ignores them completely. But when she has troubles, everyone has to listen. One word– selfishness.

There are, of course, other things, but I think I’m already dedicating so much of this post to her its annoying yours truly.

Someday I’m going to find a friend who will not only share with me his/her feelings, but will let me share mine too. Someone who’ll give me advice and not interrupt me every time I say something, someone who’ll accept my deep and dark side but will not be influenced by it. Its hard. I thought I had found a good friend in that friend I mentioned above, but as usual, I suck at making the right friends, always finding the ones that’ll push me to suicidal thoughts and whatnot.

Someday, I’m gonna find a true friend.

And to all the horrible friends I’ve made before,

so many times… I guess its time for you to go.
"If your friends cause you to lie or pretend about liking or disliking, enjoying 
or loathing something. 
If you're having to change yourself for them. 
They were never friends to begin with. 
Choose them wisely."

Trust this man. He’s hell a lot smarter than I am.

And to end the “heavier” part of this post,

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MC1b

I made this cake for a great friend of mine for a couple months already. She’s a Christian like me, listens to me, is genuinely sad when she can’t offer me good advice. Although I can’t yet bring myself to tell her everything, I know she’ll always be there for me, and I’ll always be there for her, even though we are miles apart.

MC2

This cake is moist, crumbly and decadent. Its milo flavoured, which really means malted chocolate flavoured.

MC9

For the text version of the recipe, click here.

Hazelnut Opera Cake

After months of school in Taiwan, I’ve realised that there’s something scarily wrong in society. It may be the influence of the media, according to my analysis, that’s making girls feel that they have to conform to the media’s definition of what is “beauty” in order to fit into society. My skinny underweight friends in medicine complain that they are too fat while their chests are as flat as most guys and even flatter than some guys (you know, those who work out). They set weight loss goals which would turn them into skeletons while the other girls, still slim but of acceptable weight, whine about how they need to lose weight all the time. Its downright annoying, and to an extent, even disturbing. 

I can’t understand why people can’t accept their weight for what it has been the last 5 years of their lives (the same weight since past puberty).  My other friends tell me its because guys like girls that way– bony and slim– and so girls, in order to attract the guys they like, want to look skinny for them. Honestly, I doubt guys enjoy girls yapping to them about how they should lose weight without fail everyday. I believe its not the guys’ fault. True love is about loving the person for who he or she is, accepting the person for being him/herself, whether he/she is thin or fat, ugly or beautiful (everyone’s bound to get old one day). Trying to make yourself look skinnier to attract guys, or just because you want to look like a model is wrong. Its alright to believe in yourself, and to believe in God, because He will lead us to the right person.

More about “Fat Talk Free” here:

http://feminspire.com/fat-talk-free-week-changing-the-way-we-talk-and-think-about-our-bodies/

Find the “Fat Talk Free” Pledge here: http://bi3d.tridelta.org/Pledge

Alright, and what better than a calorific Hazelnut Opera Cake to end this post?

opera1

In case you were wondering, here’s the layering of the cake components from top to bottom:

Ganache

Cake

Coffee Buttercream

Cake

Ganache

Cake

Coffee Buttercream

Cake

opera2

This recipe was adapted from Honeybee Sweets

opera3 opera4

opera5

Recipe for Coffee French Buttercream was adapted from 萧影欢城

opera11

opera8

opera9


For the text version of this recipe, click here: Hazelnut opera cake

Ciao!

Swedish Princess Cake


There are millions of blogs in the web. You probably didn’t miss me at all. HA, didn’t expect you to. But you’re stuck with me. Today, I bring you a Swedish Princess Cake, of which the minuscule version can be easily found in iKEA (you know, the restaurant, not the furniture section?).

I kinda like it. I purposely heavily reduced the sugar in the fillings to offset the sickeningly sweet marzipan. It tastes pretty good. But the smooth and soft marzipan was destroyed after I froze it in the freezer, before taking the photographs. It cracked, collapsed, melted, died, I don’t know.

I tried my best to make it look good. If it doesn’t (it doesn’t), I apologize.

#pissedatcracks –> is that how you do that Twitter thingy? Haha. (This is me making an effort to lighten up the mood) I also sifted powdered sugar over the top to make myself seem dumber than I already am.


Recipe notes:

Please exercise your (even if limited) intelligence to not freeze your marzipan after I told you what I did. 

Marzipan is adapted from Daily Delicious

Really soft yogurt chiffon cake is translated and adapted from 美食,中国 (Chinese, duh)

Pastry Cream is adapted from Oak & Bakes (Chinese)


Like I said, I’ve got other stuff prepared already. They will be up soon. 😀

PS: Millions of apologies for this poor quality post. No excuses. I’m sick of explaining myself.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Frangipane Pie with PB&J Ice Cream (vegan and gluten free)

That’s it. I give up being boring. Wry , senseless dry humour, incoherent thoughts, nonsensical behaviour (I’m guessing no second person has ever dislocated their ankle by being asleep) is the definition of my name, which I must add people have found many ways to pronounce– some in a way that terrifies every fibre in my body, some downright insulting, some ingenious… but almost never correctly.(PS, its not ‘cheating’, that’s a lame shortcut I respond to but no longer want to. QT is the safe way to go.) From next post on, I’m going back to my roots (or whatever they are).  These couple of days, I’ve been downing bowls of dead bitter medicine instead of yummy herbal chicken soup, exercising like a crazy person, studying, baking, trying to record the sound of my brother snoring for my ringtone (how fun would that be?), going for physio, learning to drive and so on. 

I’ve been experimenting on frangipane for the longest time. Typical frangipane is clogged with lumps of butter, sugar and eggs. Trying to make it healthy is one of the most difficult challenges I’ve ever taken on. I wanted to make it vegan, lower in fat and with peanuts instead of almonds since almonds are pricey. And finally, this happened.

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Peanut butter and Jelly Frangipane Pie with a gluten free crust, healthier frosting, berry cream and Peanut Butter & Jelly Ice Cream, of which all components are significantly healthier than typical counterparts.

And the best thing about this pie is that it is really easy to make!

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Recipe for Shortbread Crust is inspired by Chockohlawtay.

Recipe for Berry Cream is also from Chockohlawtay.

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Guest Post: Counterfeit Chocolate Cake Balls (Vegan)

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I really get you.

I know your heart.

I read your mind.

I recognise your innermost desires. 

Alright, I lied. I’m no mind reader but I guess that you’re probably sick of my ridiculous sarcasm, limited vocabulary and dry sense of humour. And I apologise, alright? 

I’m sorry. 

So I got someone more interesting than I am to write today’s post. 

Like me, Madison creates healthier versions of classic desserts. And she’s darn good. I mean, who can give you a recipe for healthy Mexican wedding cookies??? You can find it here. Thank her later. Or now. 

Please welcome her! 

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Hi everyone! My name is Madison and I write about my healthy baking adventures over at a little blog called Peanut Butter Lover. First I want to start off by thanking Qi Ting for allowing me to write a guest post in her lovely world of desserts! All of her recipes are so tasty and more than once have been the inspiration behind some of my experiments in the kitchen.

 

This is Madison!


In the past, I have struggled with my eating like many other fellow health food bloggers. Then one day I realized that I can still bake and eat healthy at the same time. Actually, it’s better that way! You see, instead of relying on packages to tell me what is in the food I eat, I get to decide what goes into my body.

There have been many ups and downs with my eating since then. Days of binging, days of restriction, but along the way I have come to find that nobody is perfect. While my body is made up in an exact science, it doesn’t take a scientist to fuel it properly. As long as I attempt to choose whole foods to fuel me and as long as I make good choices most of the time, I’m good.

However, since I do try to restrict myself from eating “bad” foods, I sometimes crave those old processed snacks that I’ve done away with. This is also where baking comes into play. My goal in the kitchen is to make healthy recipes that sustain my cravings. In no way do all of my recipes taste “exactly” like their unhealthy counterparts, but for the most part they do a pretty dang good job.

My inspiration in the kitchen comes from all places under the sun: cooking shows, my grandmas who love to bake, cookbooks, old family recipes, and of course- food blogs.

The recipe I am going to share with you today was actually created over a year ago after I stumbled across an online recipe for chocolate black bean brownies.

 

Christmas break had just begun and my mom, being a middle school teacher, had brought home sweet treats from her students. A dessert-lover’s heaven.

Among the boxes of confections were chocolate chip cookies, chocolate turtles and … chocolate cake balls.

This was my first experience with cake balls and it was love at first “bite.” If you don’t know what cake balls are, let me give you the 411- These decadent balls are made by mixing crumbled cake pieces with frosting and forming them into balls. Then the balls are coated with a layer of chocolate and frozen to perfection.

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My mom was trying to make them last though, so I decided to make my own to keep all for myself. They turned out great, but after indulging in one too many; I realized that cake balls were definitely not part of a healthy diet.

And that’s when I remembered that black bean brownie recipe. You could say that a lightning bolt had struck my brain at this point, and in a flash of inspiration I set to work in my kitchen to make a tasty, but healthy “cake ball.”

What I came up with is not overly sweet, but rich, moist and a chocolate lover’s dream. Oh, and did I mention that it contains no added sugar whatsoever? Well then, by all means, here’s the recipe that will knock your socks off:

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Counterfeit Chocolate Cake Balls 


No. of servings: Makes 16 to 20

Calories: About 55 calories each (With 18 cake balls)

Print Friendly and PDF

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Ingredients

1 small, ripe banana, mashed (approximately )

½ cup dates

¼ cup egg beaters

1 can black beans, drained (or about 1 ½ cups)

8 Tbsp cocoa powder

Splash vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

*Additional ingredients needed in step 8 of the directions

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Directions

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees/180C.

2.      Place the dates in a small bowl and cover with mashed banana. Microwave for 2 minutes on medium. (This replicates soaking dates which takes several hours!)

3.      Place the soaked dates, banana and egg beaters in a food processor and blend until smooth.

4.      Then add the beans by a ½ cup, processing as you go along until completely combined.

5.      Add remaining ingredients and combine.

6.      Spray an 8×8 glass pan with nonstick cooking spray and spread the brownie batter evenly into the pan.

7.      Place in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

8.      When the brownies are baking, make the Banana Chocolate “Frosting.” To make the “frosting,” combine two large bananas (about ) with of cocoa powder in a food processor until smooth.

9.      When brownies are done, let cool.

10.  How to assemble the cake balls: Crumble half of the black bean brownies into a bowl. In the same bowl place 1/3 of the “frosting” and mix together. Then, form 16 to 20 balls out of the mixture and place on a sprayed lid/cookie sheet. Freeze for an hour. Remove when frozen and coat with remaining “frosting.” Freeze until solid. Thaw for a few minutes and enjoy!

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Thanks again to Qi Ting for letting me do this guest post on her blog. It was a little late in coming, but I enjoyed writing this so much!

Please come visit my blog, check out my recent posts and my About Me page. I enjoy reading everyone’s comments and I love meeting fellow foodies!

 

Madison @ Peanut Butter Lover

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Thank YOU, Madison!! Remember to hop over to Madison’s. Right now. 😀

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Red Velvet Cheesecake for 2 (Reduced Sugar & Fat)

I’m happy to announce that I have conquered a lower fat and lower sugar version of the Cheesecake Factory’s Red Velvet Cheesecake. Its basically a basic cheesecake sandwiched between two layers of Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting ‘glue’. Its a perfect combination, I kid you not. Cookies and cream? Get the hell out of the way!

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It took me five tries (3 for the cake and 2 for the cheesecake) and 4 hours (thanks to the 55 minutes for baking the cheesecake layer… times two). And it was darn delicious.

You might want to know that it has a secret ingredient. Later.

I need to confess something.

Its not a big deal.

But I’m going to say it anyway.

I killed 3 cockroaches today.

And I felt like a murderer.

Now how did this happen?? Here’s where the story starts.

Freakish guy living downstairs (note to self: speak kindly of neighbours, even if they enjoy throbbing your floor, their ceiling with brooms like psychotic human beings… which my friendly neighbour isn’t), again complained about my nice little family’s peaceful lifestyle. Possibly thanks to the vigorous ceiling whacking (their ceiling, my floor), said neighbours’ ceiling leaked water  unidentified liquid. A couple workers came around today to fix the flawed pipe, releasing 2 adult and 1 baby cockroach into the very space where food is prepared in our home.

So there I was, after the workers left, unaware of 3 unwelcome guests sharing the 3m X 3m room that was the kitchen, cooking some fried rice (don’t ask)when this 3 1/2 inch long roach (小强) charged at me with more determination than you can imagine. I dropped my stupid wooden frying spatula and ducked. It slammed onto the floor and I, with my usually non-existent quick reflexes, flung a mat over it and jumped on it with my bare feet. It died a painful death. Sorry, roach.

But of course, there was a second and third roach. At this point of time, I realised that my fried rice lacked spring onions and began chopping the spring onions. The second roach jumped onto the chopping board and almost cost me a limb. (I was holding a knife, in case you didn’t get it) I jumped away, and again with my usually non-existent quick reflexes, threw a mat over it and jumped on it with my feet. 2 down, 1 more to go.

As I began to wonder if a scene from a horror movie was about to happen, the baby roach ran/crawled towards me with a desire to court death and I swung a giant plastic bag onto its tiny body and stomped all over the roach. It died.

And that’s how I took away 3 innocent lives from the cruel, cruel world, because I’m a cruel roach murderer.

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Oh right, the cake.

Here’s the recipe.

The recipe for the Red Velvet Cake is adapted from here : The Hungry Dudes

The recipe for the Red Velvet Cake is adapted from here : Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

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Close-up!

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Damn, I’m feeling hungry again!

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Healthy Hokkaido Bread (Taiwan-inspired!)

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6 years ago…

Location: Kaoshiung International Airport 高雄国际航空站

Crazy people: Me, Bro, Mum

Airport Security: What are you carrying?

Mum: Bread.

Airport Security: Really? (Disbelieving)

Mum: Yes. (in a ‘Duh!’ manner)

Airport Security: Is it really that delicious? (More than ‘disbelieving’-ly)

Me: Yes. (instead of raising redundant suspicions with a sarcastic “no, we are smuggling drugs”)

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I can safely say it was the most ridiculous thing we have ever done. It was the most fragrant, milky, soft bread we had ever eaten.

After 5 hopeless failures, I finally got it right. 

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It contains 5 forms of milk, which together create a sweet milky aroma that stimulates a craving in even the most determined dieter.

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If you’ve never eaten bread without spread, start here!

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Healthier Hokkaido Bread

No. of servings: 12 thick slices

Adapted from: Angie’s Recipes

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Tangzhong preparation method:

Mix 50 grams of bread flour and 250 grams of water together and stir until flour is completely dissolved.

Heat mixture over a stove in a saucepan at medium-low heat.

Keep mixing until until a swirl of your spoon leaves a trail.

Immediately pour mixture into a separate bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate till tangzhong reaches room temperature or you can leave it overnight/a few hours before using (for better results some say)

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Ingredients

  • 200 g bread flour
  • 150 g Whole Wheat flour
  • 20g milk powder
  • 120 g tangzhong
  • 60 g White sugar
  • 8g instant yeast
  • 5 g Salt
  • 1 Egg
  • 30 g fresh milk
  • 40g low fat evaporated milk
  • 10g low fat condensed milk (do not omit!)
  • 30 g low fat cream cheese, diced (tastes richer with full fat cream cheese- recommended!)

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Directions

  1. Place all other ingredients, in the mixing bowl with a dough hook and stir over the low speed until the ingredients incorporate. Adjust speed to medium and continue to beat. Knead until the dough has become very smooth and elastic.
  2. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer into a large greased mixing bowl. Roll it around so the dough gets coated with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or damp cloth. Let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down the dough to release the gas produced during the proof and divide it into 3 even portions, each about 240 grams. Round up and let rest for 15 minutes.
  3. Press out the gas of each dough and roll out into an oval shape. Fold it into thirds, overlapping them in the center, press the dough down firmly. Turn over and roll out into a 30-cm long strip. Turn over and roll up each to a column shape. Place them in a 30x11x8-cm loaf pan. Let the dough rise up to 2/3 full. Lightly brush with egg wash and bake in a preheated 170C/340F oven for 30-35 minutes.

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Its soft, fluffy, chewy, sweet and lasts 3 days that way! 

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That’s it! 😀

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This post is going to YEASTSPOTTING!!!

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Insanely Cookied Tart for the ‘Cookie-holic’ (Vegan and Much Healthier)

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I’m so excited to share with you this new creation! 

Its awesome. 

Its majestic.

It looks unhealthy.

But its whole wheat, has oats, is low fat, uses no white sugar and is so easy.

A biscuit-y pastry crust.

A cookie cake layer.

Frosted with raw (eggless) cookie dough.

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Choice of sweetener: Brown sugar!

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The Oat Flour I used.

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Insanely Cookied Tart

No. of servings: 4

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Notes: Use a cake pan. I used a 6 inch/15 cm diameter non-stick cake pan. If your pan is not non-stick, coat with non-stick spray or fat. You can use a bigger cake pan. Tart will be shorter and baking time must be reduced accordingly. Prepare the cookie layer before the biscuit pastry crust because the cookie dough balls need time to chill.

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Ingredients

Biscuit Pastry Crust (bottom)
  • 20g brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp reduced fat margarine
  • 40g whole wheat flour
  • 40g oat flour (or more ww flour)
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp baking soda
  • 1/8 tsp baking powder
  • 5 tbsp maple syrup/honey
  • 1/4 tsp butter essence
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
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Cookie Layer (Adapted from ‘Buns in my Oven‘)
  • 3 tbsp reduced fat margarine, cut into small cubes
  • 4 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp egg, cold (vegan: use egg replacer)
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tbsp oat flour/ quick cooking oats
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp baking soda
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 2 × 50g semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into chunks (vegan: non-dairy chocolate) Note: chunks can be big! The tart will be more gooey!
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Raw Cookie Dough Ball ‘ frosting’
  • 1 tbsp reduced fat spread
  • 2 tbsp oat flour
  • 2 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp condensed milk/ soy creamer
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp butter-vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • some soy milk

Regular: 1 tbsp chocolate chips

Chocolate: 1 tbsp cocoa powder

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Directions

Biscuit Pastry Crust (bottom)

  1. In a bowl mix reduced fat margarine and brown sugar till combined.
  2. Add butter essence, vanilla extract and maple syrup/honey.
  3. Mix till smooth.
  4. Add all dry ingredients and mix to form a dough.
  5. If the dough is too sticky, add a teaspoon of flour at a time.
  6. Press into cake mold and bake for 15-20 minutes at 390°F/200°C.

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The uncooked crust looks like this:

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Cookie Layer (Adapted from ‘Buns in my Oven‘):

  1. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat together the cold margarine and sugar until barely combined, about 1 minute on lowest speed. Do not beat until creamed or fluffy! Add the egg, maple syrup and vanilla and continue to beat until combined.
  2. Mix together the dry ingredients and add them to the margarine and sugar mixture. You should have a very stiff, lightly sticky dough. If needed, add another tablespoon of flour. Add 1 portion of chocolate chunks and mix until combined.
  3. Measure out the dough in equal portions depending on the size you want them. (I used 25g pieces rolled into balls.)
  4. Place on a sheet or in a container, cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.  This will help prevent the cookies from spreading.
  5. By this time, the biscuit pastry crust will have finished baking.
  6. Spread remaining portion of chocolate chunks onto the biscuit pastry crust.
  7. Arrange cookie dough balls onto the crust and return to oven to bake.
  8. Bake at 350°F/180°C for 15-20 minutes if you use 25g balls. If using smaller balls, bake for 11-13 minutes.

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After this step (before frosting), you’ll get something like this:

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Removed from mold…

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Raw Cookie Dough Ball ‘ frosting’:

  1. Mix all ingredients together except the chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Add enough soy milk to form a thick batter with consistency of butter cream.
  2. Divide batter into 2 portions.
  3. To 1 portion, mix in chocolate chips.
  4. To the other, mix in cocoa powder.
  5. Use frosting to frost the cake using a piping bag (or not).

Serve warm with ice cream or cold whipped cream.

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Till next time! D

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PS: I’m looking for Guest Bloggers! You can write on any topic related to health-and-wellness or anything about food or recipes of course! No other limitations. Contact me at qiting93@hotmail.com please! 😀 😀
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Marbled Pound Cake with Perfected Mock ‘Buttercream’ (Whole Wheat, Low Fat & w Vegan option)

What happened on New Year’s eve?

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I:

  • Watched 3 hours of Lizzie McGuire while waiting for Show Luo to magically appear on my television screen. Yes, I’m on a ‘Lizzie McGuire’ streak right now. Season 2 already, by the way.
  • Watched a giant beetle crawl over the television screen but couldn’t pick up enough courage to grab the only heavy object in the discinity– my newly bought book– to kill that creepy thing.
  • Shook my dad continuously for 5 minutes until my arms felt like they’d break off so that he could  probably kill the creepy thing. (I ain’t the only one afraid of being in close proximity to a living organism with a gross hard exoskeleton)

Note: did not work. Should try pouring water over him. But that would mean I have to clean up the mess. Maybe I should try my uncles’ method i.e. pour salt into his mouth. Not a good idea either. Dad has high blood pressure among other things. Got it! Chilli. He’ll kill me, which would be illegal so he probably wouldn’t…

  • Drank 3 cups of lemonade and 3 cups of barley water.
  • Wondered if I’m gonna die the next day. You know, 2012? Maybe not. I’m still alive.

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I decided to make my first pound cake today.

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It was yummy.

Take a look.

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What you need to look out for especially in this recipe is my perfected Dairy-Free, low fat, low sugar buttercream that’s pretty darn delicious thanks to a magical ingredient called PEANUT FLOUR! So its basically a peanut butter chocolate buttercream. That holds its shape!

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Marbled Pound Cake with Perfected Mock ‘Buttercream’

No. of servings: 10

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Ingredients

For Cake
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Based on  this Recipe.
Which was adapted from Alice Medrich’s Chocolate and The Art of Low Fat Desserts
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  • 1 1/2 cups/ 171 grams cake flour
  • 1/2 cup/ 70 grams whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon instant espresso or coffee powder
  • 1/3 cup dutch-process cocoa powder
  • 3 tbsp water
  • 1/3 cup/ 60 grams sugar
  • 2/3 cup/ 140 grams sugar
  • 1 whole egg + 1 egg white, stirred (vegan: 1 cup minus 1 1/2 tbsp silken tofu puree)
  • 5 Tablespoons/ 45 grams low fat sprea(note: this is vegan)
  • 1 cup nonfat yogurt (vegan: 1/2 tsp lemon juice + enough soy milk to make 1/2 cup)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
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For Mock Buttercream
  • 3 tbsp/ 1.5 oz fat free or low fat cream cheese  (vegan: use tofutti OR more low fat spread)
  • 1/4 cup low fat spread
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup/27 g powdered sugar
  • 2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup peanut flour
  • 2 tbsp cake flour
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Directions

Note that a hand mixer can be used in place of the stand mixer for this recipe.

For cake:
Have all ingredients at room temp. Preheat oven to 180ºC /35oºF with rack in the lower third of the oven. Spray 8-10 cup tube pan with cooking spray.

Bowl 1: Use a whisk to combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Sift together. Note: because whole wheat flour is used, there are some bran flakes left in the sift. Don’t worry. Just dump them into the sifted mixture and mix well. Set aside.

Bowl 2: In a small bowl combine the espresso powder, cocoa and 1/3 cup of the sugar with 3 tbsp of water. Whisk until smooth. Set aside.

Bowl 3: In another small bowl, whisk whole egg with egg white. Set aside. (skip for vegan version just measure out tofu in a bowl)

Mixing bowl: Cut the butter into pieces and place in an electric mixing bowl. Beat for 1 minute to soften. Gradually add remaining 2/3 cup of sugar and beat at high speed for about 3 minutes.Dribble eggs (vegan: pureed tofu)  in slowly, about 1 T at a time, beating constantly for about 2 minutes. On low speed, beat in a third of the flour mixture. On medium-high speed, beat in half of the yogurt (vegan: soured soy milk). On low speed, beat in half of the remaining flour. On high speed, beat in the rest of the yogurt (vegan: soured soy milk) and the vanilla. On low speed, beat in the remaining flour.

Bowl 5: Measure out 1 1/2 cups of yogurt batter (vegan: soured soy milk) and mix into the cocoa mixture. Set aside.

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Use a large spoon to fill the bottom of the pan with about three quarters of the white batter placed in dollops. Cover the white batter with dollops of chocolate batter. Top the chocolate batter with small dollops of white batter spaced so that the chocolate batter shows through. Use a table knife to marble the batters together with a circular or zigzag motion; be careful not to blend them too much. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in comes out clean.

Cool for 10-15 minutes on a rack. Unmold the cake. Cool completely before serving or storing.

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For mock buttercream:
Sift dry ingredients together. Whip cream cheese and low fat spread until evenly mixed.  Add in dry ingredients and all remaining ingredients and mix till a thick ‘buttercream’ is formed. If mixture is still not thick enough, add a tbsp of cake flour at a time. 

This versatile frosting can be used to frost shapes like roses and stuff 😀

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Assembly:

Slice the cake into half. Spread filling on bottom layer and cover with top layer. Frost cake as you wish.

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I love looking at the bottom of the pound cake– to me, its what makes the pound cake.

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It doesn’t exactly fall into the category of low calorie desserts. But it  is  a reduced calorie food. So go ahead and have 2 pieces. Or more

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Love ya! Enjoy your first few days of 2012. Or if you believe so, the beginning of the last days… please don’t freak out now.

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