Mia Bakes: 44 Calories Chocolate Cake

Oh yeah, a 44 calories chocolate cake. 

Wait, WHAT? FORTY-FOUR calories, CHOCOLATE cake? 

Yes, you read that right. And that wasn't a clickbait title, nor some portion size reduction trick. I'm going to share with you a recipe I've found on Oat Fiber's youtube channel, for a friggin 44 calories chocolate cake of a decent portion size that WILL fill you up. 

And here's what's 40 calories of chocolate cake look like. 

And the trick here, as I've said is NOT portion sizes, but oat fibre (I got mine from NuNaturals off iherb.sg)! 

Oat fibre comes from the fibrous husk of the oats, which is pure insoluble fibre and hence, virtually indigestible and therefore contains zero calories, carbs and nutrients. It helps to pack a load of insoluble fibre into our diet, which helps to reduce constipation (provided you're drinking enough water), promotes a full feeling for long periods of time and may even help to reduce over LDL cholesterol. 

Okay, the "health benefits" of oat fibre aside, the bigger benefit of oat fibre (for fellow ladies watching your calories), is that it is ZERO calories and helps to add bulk to your food. For example, you can get your usual 4-pancake stack into a 6-pancake stack without any additional calories just by adding oat fibre! This is literally a godsend for me right now, being unable to do any form of legit exercise for the next 2 months due to a tailbone fracture.

Anyway, let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started.

For 1 serving (I made mine in 2 silicon cupcake moulds): 

1 tbsp plain flour (27.5 kcals)

2 tbsp oat fibre (0 kcals)

1 tbsp unsweeten cocoa powder (10 kcals, I used Hershey's)

0.5 tbsp 0 calorie sweetener of your choice (0 kcals)

1 tbsp 0 calorie maple flavour syrup (0 kcals) 

1/8 tsp baking powder (0 kcals)

half of 1/8 tsp baking soda (0 kcals)

1 tbsp low fat milk (6 kcals, I used FairPrice housebrand)

1.5 - 2 tbsp water (0 kcals)

adapted from Oat Fiber

Making this can't be any easier, just dump all the dry ingredients into a small clean bowl (you can sift your cocoa powder if they're too lumpy), give it a quick stir with a fork to get them well combined before adding in the wet ingredients (except the water) and stirring until well combined. Then, add in enough water to get the batter to a pourable, cake batter consistency.

Then, transfer the batter into a mould of your choice and STEAM it, either in your steamer if you have one or in a large pot of boiling water, covered, for about 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The thing about oat fibre, is that it gives a very dry and crumbly, yet also wet and mushy texture to baked goods, if you've replaced too much of the flour with it. So steaming this cake is the way to get your cake coming out tender, moist and fudgy, just like a fudgy brownie. 

If you're not hard up on saving the calories, I'll strongly suggest that you pop in a tablespoon of chocolate chips as well to add in more flavour to the cake. Otherwise, this will be an extremely healthy tasting cake. But hey, it's only 44 calories and it's of a decent serving size that will fill you up. What more can you ask for, right?

Till then,
Mia Foo