Mia Makes: Whey Protein Pancakes (with 2-ingredients chocolate sauce)

 On a diet, but craving for pancakes? 
What if I tell you, you can get your pancake craving fixed (with chocolate chips!) at only 350 kcals and still get 27g of protein? Sounds too good to be true?

But it is! So let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started!

25g whey protein powder (I'm using My Protein Impact Whey Isolate)
10g oat flour 
18g oat fibre (about 2 tbsps)
120g unsweeten applesauce
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda

Optional:
20g dark chocolate chips
a little sugar to taste, if your protein powder is unflavoured. 

First up, separate your egg whites from yolk. Nope, we're not going to whip the whites, but somehow adding the whites separately at the very end will give you thicker, fluffier pancakes. Try it!

In a clean bowl, add in the yolk and applesauce and whisk until fully mixed. Then, add in all the dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips) and mix until there's no obvious pockets of dry flour. Then, add in the egg whites and chocolate chips and fold the mixture until there's no more obvious streaks of snotty egg whites floating around. You need not fully incorporate (and risk over-mixing your batter) the whites into the batter. 

Cook the batter over the hob on a non-stick pan, as you would with any other pancakes (eg. flipping when bubbles start to appear on the surface).
If you still don't know, the trick to get an evenly browned pancake is to NOT add oil/butter to your pan (hence it better be non-stick). Just give it a quick spray with some non-stick cooking spray and be sure to wipe off any excess oil (if you can SEE the droplets of oil, that's excess) with a kitchen towel before pouring in your pancake batter. 

Tadaa~
I've used milk tea flavoured whey protein powder, hence I've a stack of Milk Tea Chocolate Chip pancakes, YUM!

Protein pancakes made with whey protein powder will always turn out rather dry, so while this recipe will give you thick and "fluffy" pancakes, do not expect them to be moist and tender. But, comparing to a "traditional" whey protein pancake (especially those from protein pancake premix), this fare a lot better as the applesauce helps to make it a little more moist, while oat fibre tends to create this moist-mushy texture in baked goods.

I usually eat my pancakes with some maple flavoured syrup or peanut butter, but this time I thought of trying out a simple recipe for some chocolate sauce. 

You'll need:
3 tbsp cocoa powder 
1 tbsp honey
water (add enough to get the consistency you desire)

adapted from wholeheartedlylaura.com

While the consistency of the sauce was perfect (drippy, yet not too runny), the taste was pretty.... "healthy". Perhaps it will work better with more sweetener, or to use drinking cocoa powder instead of the unsweeten kind I've used. If you've tried this recipe using drinking cocoa powder and it turned out well for you, do let me know in the comments section below!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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#cheatday breakfast recipes

Well, actually I can't even decide if I can call these recipes; perhaps just "procedures of assembly" will be a better phrase? 

Anyway, here's my current top 3 (+1 bonus) #cheatday breakfasts that I've been craving for these past few weeks/ months. 

#cheatdayeats breakfast, let's go!

First up, this black, shapeless.... thing. 

Which actually, is a peanut butter-ovolmatine chocolate chip baked oatmeal. Sorry, I could have chosen a mould of another colour but I don't have one. >.<

Preparation for this breakfast can't get any simpler, just grab a bowl and dump everything (listed  under ingredient list below) in, stir until well combined and transfer into your desired mould and bake at 190 degree Celsius for about 25-30 minutes (until it has dried up into a "cake").

I've also tried cooking it "pancake style" without a mould on a non-stick pan over the hob, on small to medium fire, and it works too, taking a shorter time of around just 20 minutes in total to get done, but you'll end up with pieces of torn up "pancakes" because they do not flip well. 

Doesn't matter if you're not making breakfast for The Gram, right? 

ingredient list

45g rolled oats

60g unsweeten applesauce

 1 tsp pyure (baking stevia blend)

1 tbsp creamy peanut butter

1 tbsp ovolmatine spread 

1 tbsp unsweeten cocoa powder

~2 tbsp milk 

(add more if oat-batter is too dry)

a pinch of salt

a handful (or more) chocolate chips

adapted from chocolatecoveredkatie

You can use other sweeteners like honey or maple syrup, but do adjust the amount of milk to get the correct pastey consistent of the oat-batter. 

And I always eat this topped with MORE ovolmatine spread or peanut butter (or BOTH!) which is why I'm taking it easier on the added sweetener, if you're planning to eat this as it is, perhaps you would want to increase the amount of sweetener too!

EDITED:

And so I deducted 5g of rolled oats (using only 40g) and added a tbsp of chocolate whey protein powder + 1 tbsp of wholemeal flour to the batter and they turned out so much easier to flip as flapjacks/pancakes! 

 But texture wise it's definitely slightly different as compared to the original baked oatmeal, as you can get tiny portions of "cakey" bits here and there in between the oats now. 

Next up on the list, FRENCH TOAST!

Did I mention that I LOVE breads?

There's many different variation to how I like my french toasts. Sometimes I sandwich some ham and cheese in between and turn it into a Croque Monsieur, sometimes I slather a thick layer of nutella/peanut butter/ovolmatine spread in between. sometimes I have them "plain" with some maple-flavoured syrup and butter. 

But now I'm showing you my most zhng-up (made fancy) version till date, niangao peanut cornflake-crusted french toast. 

This is two slices of thick wholemeal french toast with crushed cornflake crust, with slices of niangao (brown/coconut sugar glutinous rice cake) sandwiched in between, and then further topped with a layer of peanut butter AND ground peanuts on top. 

So first up, crush up some cornflakes, either with your bare hands or with a rolling pin, and set them aside in a plate that's big enough for your bread to fit in. Then, prepare your egg custard mixture as per usual (I usually do 1 medium egg to 1 tbsp milk, with a dash of ground cinnamon), and preferably do not sweeten your egg mixture as the nian gao will add ALOT of sweetness. 

First, dip your bread in the egg custard mixture until both sides are generously coated/soaked in the egg custard mixture and then plopped them onto the crushed cornflakes to coat. You'll have to get your hands a little messy here to make sure the breads are well coated. Pat the surface lightly to get the crushed cornflakes to stick better. 

In a non-stick pan, heat up a tablespoon of butter over low/medium heat and fry (one side of) both slices of your prepared breads at the same time. When the cooked side has turned golden brown, first flip just ONE of the two slices and lay your sliced nian gao over the cooked side, then pick up your other slice of unflipped bread and place it, COOKED SIDE DOWN, over the nian gao. 

Cover your pan with a lid and cook for however long it took you to cook the other side. Then, flip the entire sandwich over, cover the lid and cook for the same amount of time, and VIOLA~

Remove your french toast sandwich from the pan and slather on a thick (or thin, if you prefer) of peanut butter before topping it with some ground roasted peanuts. 

ingredient list

2 slices of your favourite (preferably) thick bread

(wholemeal, white, multigrain, whatever)

1 medium egg

1 tbsp milk

sliced nian gao 

(thickness according to your own preference)

crusted cornflakes 

(enough to coat both sides of your breads)

a dash of ground cinnamon

peanut butter

ground peanuts

salted butter (for cooking)

Next up, the final #cheatday breakfast on my list has to be PANCAKES (or hotcakes)!

Usually I'll make my own quick and super fluffy pancakes (recipe HERE), I just so happened to see this at Daiso recently.

credits to pinterest

Yes, Daiso now carries their own hotcake (Japanese style pancakes that's slightly thicker and with a sweeter taste) mix and I need to give it a try!
Making this can't be any simpler, just follow the instructions at the back of the package. HAHA!
They even give you the egg and no-egg versions. I followed the no-egg version as 1 egg is for the entire pack of 2 servings. I'm only making 1 serving at a time and I didn't want to use half-egg, so.... no egg it shall be!

The trick to getting that beautifully, evenly browned hotcake surface is to use as little oil as possible. So you heat up your oil in the pan and then literally go in and wipe off all visible streaks of oil on your pan, effectively you're just greasing your pan, not oiling it.

But I'm too lazy to do that extra step and butter shall NOT be wasted like that so I'll rather not have IG-worthy looking hotcake stack for breakfast. 

But of course, it's cheatday and I NEED to zhng-up my hotcakes too!

So I actually added two tablespoons of Nestum Multigrain cereal (and more milk to tweak the consistency) to my batter and a handful of chocolate chips into the batter for two of my 3 hotcakes. 

Without adding Nestum, half a pack should only yield 2 hotcakes instead of 3. 

ingredient list

daiso hotcake mix

2 tbsp nestum multigrain

milk

chocolate chips

salted butter (for cooking)

Last but not least, a bonus recipe from the talented Japanese youtuber, Ochikeron.
Tofu Brownies!

And of course, I zhng it up for cheatday by slicing it in half and slathering a thick layer of peanut butter and ovolmatine over it. 

I mean, sorry but these are diet-friendly healthy tofu brownies (~100 kcals per slice), even on non-cheatday I eat them with ice cream!

ingredient list

100g silken tofu

100g flour 

(I used wholemeal)

100ml milk

3 tbsp unsweeten cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2.5 tbsp pyure (baking stevia blend)
30g chocolate chips
adapted from createeathappy
(watch Ochikeron's video recipe on how to make it)

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Super Quick and Easy Fluffy Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Because I recently impulse-bought Fifty 50 Low GI Maple Flavoured Fructose Sweetener (HERE) while carting out my usual purchase on iherb, I decided.... It's time for a pancake breakfast!

And since it's sunday cheatday, I decided to go big or go home and make some CHOCOLATE CHIP pancakes!

To get 3 thick and fluffy pancakes, you'll need:

85g top flour (or cake flour)

70ml milk

2 tsp to 1 tbsp powdered sugar

(do adjust the sugar according to your preference, and also based on the type of chocolate chips you're using. Eg. milk/dark/bittersweet etc)

(about) 2 tsp melted butter 

1 medium/large egg 

(yolk and whites separated)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 baking powder

1/4 baking soda

30g to 35g semi-sweet chocolate chips 

(or however more or less you fancy)

First up, make sure all your ingredients (except melted butter) are at room temperature. Crack your egg open and separate the yolk and white. Set the egg whites aside and add your yolk into a big bowl along with the milk, melted butter, vanilla extract and sugar. Beat until well combined.

Add in the dry ingredients and fold until almost combined.

Almost meaning it would still be lumpy, but there's just minimal patches of pure white flour here and there. Then, add in your egg whites (you don't have to beat the whites into meringue!) and mix until just combined. You would still want your battery to remain lumpy but without any chunky remains of the snotty-looking egg whites. 

Finally, dump in all your chocolate chips and fold until just combined. 

Set your batter in the fridge to rest for about 10 minutes. 

After 10 minutes of resting, take your pancake batter our from the fridge and heat up your skillet/frying pan. I'm using a non-stick pan, hence there's no need to butter/oil it, but if yours isn't non-stick, lightly oil your pan and use a paper towel to remove any excess oils from the surface. Doing this will give you a well-browned pancake instead of patches of overly browned with "uncooked" parts all over. 

On the lowest heat, scoop 1/4 cup of your batter and pour it from about 3 inches height onto the pan to allow the batter to spread out into a circle on its own. Cook it on low heat until you see bubbles appearing on the surface, and quickly flip them over. Be sure to flip the pancakes when the uncooked, bubbly surface is still wet (a dry skin has not yet formed over the surface). This will allow the pancake to further rise up after getting flipped and grow thick and fluffy after they're cooked!

After flipping your pancakes, cover with a lid and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.

And there you have it, thick and fluffy pancakes without the need to beat your egg whites into meringue!

And with a light drizzle of the pancake maple flavoured syrup (I only added 2 tsp of sugar to my batter), this is definitely the BEST Sunday #cheatday breakfast, ever!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Protein Cheesy Pancake

I have no idea why, but these days I have a sudden craving for pancakes and frankly speaking, those pancake mixes are a total rip-off, and with 2 new bags of  1kg protein powder sitting in my kitchen cabinet, so why not make myself some protein pancakes?

So let's get over with the ingredients so we can get started!

For 1 serving of two pancakes, you'll need:

1 scoop protein powder

(I used unflavoured My Protein Total Protein, 30g)

20g all purpose flour

(you can also use wholemeal flour if you prefer)

50ml milk

1 small/medium egg

1 tsp stevia (for taste)

1/4 tsp baking powder

your choice of cheese

(I used a combination of sliced cheddar and shredded mozzarella)

Optional:

Ham (as topping)

First, mix all your dry ingredients and wet ingredients (except for cheese) in a large mixing bowl until JUST combined. If you wish to have extremely cheesy pancakes, you may fold in few handful of shredded cheese into the batter, but I'll prefer to have mine the grilled cheese sandwich style, so I didn't. 

So on a lightly greased pan, drop half of the batter in and move your pan around slightly to get the batter to spread into a nice and even circle. Cook on one side until you see bubbles appearing on the uncooked surface and remove it from the pan first (be careful not to "mess up" the uncooked surface) and proceed with cooking your 2nd pancake. 

For the 2nd pancake, flip it once you see bubbles appearing on the surface, and then place in your cheese (as much or as little as you like) and lay the 1st pancake over the top, cooked side down onto the cheese. 

Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for another 2 minutes on low. Then, flip the pancake-sandwich around and cook on the other side for another 2 minutes, pressing down on the pancakes it cooks, or until you see the melted cheese oozing out from the sides. 

Plate your pancakes and top it up with some ham or bacon!

Other for the ham (processed meat), this protein pancake is actually pretty healthy and calorie-friendly. 

A serving of two pancakes (without cheese) will only set you back by 272 kcals and giving you 33g of protein! Adding the cheese (1 slice cheddar and about 10g of shredded mozzarella) will push the calories up to 333 kcals, but with almost 40g of protein!

For all you pancake lovers out there trying to increase your protein intake, this will be a super simple, quick and easy recipe for you!

Do try this out and let me know how it turned out for you. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Batter Fluffy Flaps (BFF)

A few weeks ago, I was totally attracted by this (weather-hit dirty) cute little thing here.

This round 'fluffy' lamb standing right outside an equally cute and cozy looking cafe must have been pearly white when it first got to where it's now.

Even their menu is oozing cuteness! And yes, the 'flaps' here are actually pancakes! 

 The interior is done up in a cute and cozy style, with their mascot lamb on the wall whereby you can actually take snapshots with your friends.

Erm, no the green giraffe is not their table decor. HA HA HA! 

My drink of the day was (one of) my usual favourites named BFF style- BFF signature Caramel Date (Caramel Machiato) - $5.20
Erm, was really disappointed with the caramel sauce 'latte art' they did, even mc cafe did it better. Taste wise, is decent. Not bad, but nothing worth talking much about. For a coffee addict like me, I'll very much prefer the coffee to be even stronger.

Their pancakes comes in 4 main categories.
1. Simple & Make your own
2. Savoury
3. Sweet
4. Kid's Menu

 My mains for the day: Chicken Kebab Blab (Savoury) - $12.90

The chicken kebab wasn't too bad. The chicken was well marinated and still relatively tender, though not juicy, was rather pleasing on my taste buds. The pancakes were light and fluffy, but a bit on the dry side. However, I wasn't too impressed with the dish, for the kebab and pancakes does not mix well nor compliment each other at all. If you've read my review on Wafflelicious, you'll know that they've done savoury waffles pretty well. But not for BFF's case with this Chicken Kebab Blab. 

Tasty kebab and decent pancakes, served with greens topped up with mini eggs (how cute is that). But sadly, they do not compliment each other at all. I felt like I was eating 2 separate dishes, pancakes and chicken kebabs. Not Chicken Kebab Blab. 

Strawberry Cheesecake Flakes - $12.90

These 2 pancakes were served with their house-made cream cheese, digestive biscuit crumbs, strawberries, strawberry ice cream and sauce. 

If you're a cream cheese and strawberry fan, this will be a much better choice as compared to the savoury pancakes. I probably won't say it's fantastically good, but it is an enjoyable serving of sweet pancakes. However, the generosity of digestive crumbs deemed this dish a messy eat.

Teddy Beary - $6.50

One look and you'll know this is off their kid's menu. It's really just a basic pancake, served in cuteness with butter and a few berries, for little kiddos.

BFF is located at 89 East Coast Road. 

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Seventh Heaven

Yup, this is a super super super belated post! SL and I visited Seventh Heaven located at Orchard Central for some sweet treats on the same day we visited Sarang for dinner. *sheepish grin* 

Nevertheless, here's the review. :)

 We got for ourselves one of the pancakes - The Orchard

and a mudpie - Mile High Mud Pie

And we were pretty unfortunate to have no serving sample view from other existing customers, for their servings are ginormous!

This is my mile high mud pie, and it's literally 'mile high'. Totally jaw-dropped at the serving. There is as good as 3 full gelato scoops of vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter hidden in the thick rock hard chocolate coating. And due to the ice cream, the chocolate pretty much remains frozen and I had a hard time breaking it up to get to the ice creams within. The chocolate coating was relatively thick, with a rich sweet and creamy chocolatey taste. Definitely not some 'cheapskate' chocolate.
Upon breaking the chocolate coating, I was greeted upon with the white creamy goodness of the French vanilla ice cream. The taste of the French vanilla ice cream has a much stronger vanilla fragrance and slightly sweeter as compared to other vanilla ice cream. I kind of like it, but it wasn't to SL's liking though.
After tasting the vanilla ice cream, we 'hack' off more pieces of the frozen chocolate coating to reveal the peanut butter ice cream beneath it. I'll say the peanut butter was a pleasant surprise. I'm not really a fan of peanut butter jam at all, but I kind of like this ice cream. It tasted like an ice cold, creamy version of the peanut butter cracker my mother used to buy in large family pack from the supermarket. However, it might be too much to finish up the entire amount of ice cream stacked in this mud pie. Well actually, this entire mud pie by itself is just too much.
Well, moving on, we're just left with the chocolate ice cream. And seriously speaking, need I say more? Who will hate chocolate ice cream?

And to be brutally honest, don't ever try to order one for yourself. Get someone to share it with you, TWO (ladies) to ONE dessert only. Or else, you'll end up with the same sorry mess on the table as SL and me.

And I apologise for the gross sight. :p

Next up, is The Orchard pancakes ordered by SL. It's quite a pretty looking dessert, if not for the sorry glob of half meltedwhipped cream that was sliding down the warm pancakes. We had a race against time to snap a decent picture of the dessert before the whipped cream completely slides off the pancake, bringing the poor cherry along with it. HA HA HA!
The pancakes are warm, thick and dense. Oh well, not that much to my liking for I'll prefer soft fluffy kinds like a Japanese hotcake. I remember there were 3 pieces of pancakes served, so ladies with smaller appetite might wanna drop by for their pancakes in threes. :)
Their 'heap of fresh fruits' were mainly apples (red and green), pears and a few pretty tasteless grapes. I personally didn't find the fruits exceptionally fresh, especially when the speedy oxidation problem of the apples pretty much gave me a biased judgement of un-freshness with the yellowish brown surface, which can already be seen in this picture taken when it was served.
The scary mess of brownish red wedged between the stack of pancakes and cut fruits is the fruit compote, which SL and I believed to be made mainly from berries. But of course, we could be wrong. So do let me know the correct answer to it in the comment board if you happen to know. And this is a perfect example of don't judge a book by its cover, for both SL and I liked it! It was sweet and slightly tangy, my favourite taste of all desserts. The texture is a mix between runny and gooey, with many bits of finely chopped/mashed up fruits to add on a barely there bite to it. It's good to be eaten in generous heap on top of the warm pancakes, or carefully savoured in bit by bit on the tip of the fork.
And fortunately for SL, who didn't like the French Vanilla Ice Cream, the pancake was served with a generous scoop of their chocolate ice cream instead of the French Vanilla as stated in the menu.
The staff must have overheard her saying that she didn't like the French Vanilla! *rofl*

And lastly, do I need to comment on their price? I'll say that it's actually very inexpensive, for 1 order actually serves minimum 2 pax. :)

And there's also this separate piece of menu with their organic herbal tea list. I didn't order any to try for it was already quite late and I just had my Yuzu tea at Sarang minutes ago. But looking at it right now, I'll definitely for the Soothing Throat. *cough cough*

 

And there's Seventh Heaven details here FYI. 

Till then,

Mia

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