Mia Bakes: Healthy Cinnamon Roll Loaf Cake

 Craving for some warm, sweet, soft and fluffy cinnamon rolls, but not keen on all the time needed for kneading and dough proofing? 

How about getting one in the form of a fuss-free quickbread / loaf cake? 

And what if I'm telling you that it's a healthy, low calorie, reduced sugar one? 

So let's get over with the ingredients (for 1 standard loaf pan of 10 - 12 slices) to get started!

For the cake

250g plain yogurt 

(not greek, but not too watery)

205g plain flour

45g oat fibre 

(or replace with more flour)

80g baking stevia blend

60g vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

a pinch of salt

recipe adapted from theclevermeal

For the filling/swirl

120g applesauce

(I used homemade, but you can get store-bought)

65g brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 mixed spice (optional)

First up, make sure that your ingredients (especially yogurt and eggs) aren't too cold, if not the batter might form curds while you mix. Well, not that it's the end of the world anyway, you can still mix in the flour and bake it off, though.

In a clean bowl, add in your applesauce, brown sugar, cinnamon and mixed spice and stir to combine. Then, set this aside. 

Next, in a large clean bowl, crack in your eggs and add in the sugar, whisking until the sugar granules has dissolved. Then, add in the oil and whisk until the oil is fully incorporated before adding in the (not too cold) yogurt, vanilla and almond extracts. There may be a little curdling (especially if your yogurt is too cold) but no worries, just add in the rest of the dry ingredients and fold with a spatula until everything is just combined. 

Line your loaf pan with parchment paper or spray it down with some non-stick cooking spray. Then, pour in half of the batter and level it out with your spatula. Get your bowl of applesauce-sugar mixture and spoon half (or slightly more than half) of the mixture over the top of the cake batter. Spread them out as evenly as you can. Then, pour the remaining cake batter over the top and level our the surface again with your spatula. Then, drop dollops of the remaining applesauce-sugar mixture over the surface, before swirling the dollops all over the cake to give it a marbled look. You can do so by simply sticking a butter knife right down the centre of the loaf pan and just swirling it around randomly. 

Then, bake at 160 degrees Celsius (fan setting) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

 

Allow the cake to cool off slightly in the pan before taking it out of the pan and letting it cool completely on a wire rack. 

As you can see, due to high yogurt content, this cake is ridiculously moist (hovering at the brink of being mushy, actually) and soft. I know the slices looked gummy, as if they've not risen properly, but that's actually because my knife has smoothen out the moist crumbs with my slicing motion.

Yes, it's THAT moist. 

Flavour wise, if you're a fan of cinnamon rolls or apple pies, then this is your jam! 

While the yogurt has made the cake extremely tender and moist, the applesauce-sugar filling has packed the cake with a strong punch of the tart applesauce (since I've made my own, I added some sliced of lemon to make my applesauce tart), with a lovely brown sugar and cinnamon sweetness. 

Best of all, due to the reduced sugar and reduced oil recipe, 1 decent slice of the cake is only barely 170 kcals, and packs a decent amount of protein and fibre! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Easy 2-Ingredients Sweet Potato Cake

 Recently, my grandma went on a sweet potato buying spree and got us 3 bags of them: Japanese, red and purple. And it just so happens that we (namely my brother and I) dislike the purple sweet potatoes. We both love eating steamed sweet potatoes though (as snacks!), as long as it's not purple, due to its unpleasant earthy flavour and tendency to have tough stringy fibres. 
So it wasn't long before we wiped out the Japanese and Red sweet potatoes, and was left with one full bag of the purples and then we started declaring, "we're out of sweet potatoes!" much to the chagrin of our mother, who would point to the full bag of purple sweet potatoes and say, "NEH!"

So I guess, it's entirely up to me to embark on this very important mission. The mission to finish up all that pesky purple sweet potatoes before we can get anymore Japanese ones. HAH!

But I REALLY dislike eating them, so I reckon the only way out is to.... bake something out of them? They did fairly well in the nian gao mochi balls but it's not the season for us to have ready made nian gao lying around in the house, yet. So, when is a better time than now to try out this super easy recipe from Cook Kafemaru?

And it's none other than the super quick and easy, 2 ingredient sweet potato cake! 

For roughly 6 small slices, you'll need:

300g sweet potatoes

Vanilla Ice Cream 

(amount greatly depend on moisture content of your sweet potatoes)

Optional:

egg yolk + water (for egg wash, omit if using purple SP)

black sesame/pumpkin seeds as toppings.

Recipe from Cook Kafemaru

First, rinse your sweet potatoes clean. Peel the skin off and cut into thin slices or small cubes. Cook till soft by either steaming them in a steamer or using a microwave. I'll suggest you don't boil them, as it'll introduce a lot of unnecessary moisture into your sweet potato, and you'll end up being unable to add sufficient ice cream to the puree for a good flavour. As such, microwaving (or baking/roasting, if you have time to waste spend a good 30 to 40 minutes oven-baking your sweet potatoes) will probably give you the most flavourful cakes, as you'll be able to add in a lot more ice cream to your sweet potato as they'll be considerably dried out by the microwave. 

So once your sweet potatoes are thoroughly cooked through (and soft), mash them up while they're still hot (as they'll be softer and easier to mash). Do spend a little bit more time mashing (or use a food processor like I did) if you're using the purple SP like me, as they tend to be a lot more fibrous. Mashing the Indonesian Honey SP will be a breeze, I'd tell you. 

Anyway, once you're happy with how thoroughly mashed up your SP is, add in your vanilla ice cream and mix. As your SP should still be warm, it shouldn't be an issue if your ice cream is quite frozen (or you may wanna set your ice cream on the counter for a while for it to soften first). But make sure it's a GOOD QUALITY vanilla ice cream (or your favourite one) as this is THE ingredient that will make or break your SP cakes. 

Add the ice cream in small amount, or you may start off with about 50g first and see how dry the batter turned out before adding more, spoon by spoon. Ultimately you should get a ball of dough that is like playdough, pliable and able to hold its shape and doesn't really get all mushy in your hands. 

And then, it's time to start shaping them! You can either roll them up into small pingpong sized balls, or shape them into cute little cubes and top them with some sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds.

But I'm lazy, so I just press everything into a loaf pan and bake them off at 180 degree Celsius for about 25 minutes. 

Do note that if you're baking them as bite sized balls or cubes, your baking time will be significantly shorter; otherwise you can follow Cook Kafemaru and bake them in a toaster oven for 7 - 8 minutes. 

Tadaa~

I guess I could have still baked mine for another 5 minutes or so, as they turned out very fudgy/creamy. I do not really appreciate fudgy stuff unless they're brownies/chocolate. But it's still way better than having to eat steamed purple potatoes, that's for sure! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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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

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Mia Bakes: Strained Yogurt Chocolate Cake

I didn't plan to post this recipe up, since it's pretty wholesale copied from Cook Kafemaru (on youtube) but the cake ended up tasting SO GOOD, legit like a baked chocolate cheesecake when there's no cream cheese (or cottage cheese, or ricotta cheese) in it; I had to share this recipe!

So, I also apologise for the lack of decent quality photographs of the cake. 

To get a small 10-12cm round cake, you'll need:

For the crust:
6 pieces Tiger Original Biscuit
(or you can use Digestive biscuits or any other biscuits you fancy but the amount of melted butter will vary)
10g salted butter, melted

For the cake:
~190-200g plain natural yogurt
(I used a mixture of Farm Fresh and Meiji)
100g dark, semi-sweet chocolate
(if you prefer a sweeter cake, you can use milk chocolate)
a pinch of salt
2 eggs
10g plain flour (or cake flour)
1/4 tsp baking powder

adapted from Cook Kafemaru

First, you need to strain the yogurt the night before. You can use a cheesecloth (I reckon) if you have one. Otherwise, lay some coffee filter paper or heavy duty kitchen paper towel over a sieve. Pour the yogurt into the sieve and set it over a bowl. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the yogurt and leave it overnight in the fridge. I strained mine for about 12 hours and got a consistency that's just very slightly thicker than greek yogurt. So perhaps you can replace with just greek yogurt, if yours is the super thick kind, or just strain your greek yogurt for a shorter time.
Ultimately, you'll need just 100g of strained yogurt and 190 - 200g of natural yogurt should get you 100g of strained yogurt.

Once we get the strained yogurt out of the way, crush up your biscuits in a food processor or just by hitting them in a ziplock bag with a rolling pin. Add in the melted butter and mix until the crumbs resemble the consistency of wet sand. Then, pour the crumbs into your cake tin that's lined with baking paper and press down the crumbs into the base of the cake tin to form the crust. If you're baking the cake in a proper oven (with top and bottom heat), you can first set the compacted crust aside. However, if you're making this in an airfryer, pre-bake the crust at 180 degrees Celsius for 5 to 10 minutes.

Then melt your chocolate either over a bain marie (a heat proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water) or in the microwave. Stir up the chocolate to let it cool down for a bit, before mixing in the 100g of strained yogurt. Whisk until everything is well combined before adding in the eggs, 1 at a time, and whisking until well combined after each addition.
Then, sift in the flour and baking powder (do sift it in for easier mixing, otherwise the flour might just disappear into a corner of the batter as a huge pocket of flour) and whisk until you get a homogenous batter. Pour the batter over the crust and bake at 160 - 170 degrees Celsius for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on your oven and also how you will prefer the texture of your cake to be.
If you prefer the cake to be slightly underbaked in the centre like Japanese rare cheesecake, bake it at 160 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes and check for doneness by touching the surface of the cake. The top should be fully set and the centre (just the centre portion, not the sides!) should be softer to the touch and slightly jiggly.
If you prefer the cake to be fully baked through with the consistency of a fudgey brownie, bake at 170 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out relatively clean.



The cake tasted super rich and decadent, and seriously I didn't think I need the biscuit base at all. Will definitely bake this another time without the biscuit base to save up some calories. HEH!

Till then,
Mia Foo

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