Cutting Calories with Cocoa Cabbage Cake

If it's all the same, I think I'll be posting more likely on Sundays from now on, rather than Tuesdays. And for this Sunday, I have something special:

"Cabbage Cake"? Whaa!?!?

OK, so maybe you think I'm crazy, and I just might be, but I have a reason to my madness. I've been messing around with a lot of different recipes, as is the reason for this blog's existence, and as you may have guessed by the name "Caped Cruciferous", a lot of these recipes are cabbage-based. After poking around the Internet and uncovering a plethora of cauliflower-based dessert recipes, I figured it should be possible to make some out of cabbage instead, so I set out to experiment. The first thing I wanted to make: some sort of cake or brownie.

Cabbage "rice"

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a huge food junkie, practically devouring anything I considered "okay" within an arm's reach. More recently, I've been limiting my intake of food much more and have turned away from junk food for the most part. I've seen claims made online that you cease to crave junk food once you stop eating it; false! I mean no exaggeration when I say I found myself literally just staring at picture of brownies online in a way that might get recipe website tagged NSFW. Worried that I might give in before long if I don't find some way of handling these cravings, I knew what the one thing I truly needed was: cabbage brownies.

Creamy mashed cabbage?

This is what I set out to make. Starting with 1/4 of a head of green cabbage, I "riced" it in a food processor, added some milk, and continued to puree it, eventually turning it into mashed potato consistency. An egg white served as a binding agent, as this is usually what I use, and I flavored it with vanilla, cocoa powder, peanut powder, and maple syrup.

Once my batter was finished with the addition of baking powder, I needed something to bake it in. The oven was already preheated, and I was kinda having trouble finding a good container. I had planned to use a cake pan or something of that nature, but realized that I didn't have enough batter to fill it to any real meaningful depth. Eventually I decided on a foil muffin tin, and was able to fill five cups with a bit of batter, they were in the oven.

I had actually only expected the cakes to need between 20 and 30 minutes at 375°, I sure was wrong. I kept checking them by sticking in a toothpick every five minutes or so past the 20 minute mark, and didn't really feel content with how they were turning out until around 45 minutes had passed! But in the end...

Delicious - and healthy - cabbage cake! And yes, it really is tasty. It's definitely sweet, and may even need less maple syrup than I used. It tastes chocolatey and, well, cakey, but not really cabbage-y. Nutrition-wise, these guys seem like a win-win, all in all. Everything added together within the ingredients contributes less than 60 calories for each cake! This number would drop even lower if I'd made some modifications, like using less milk(since it was a very wet batter) or a sweetener other than maple syrup. I could also cut down by using flavors other than chocolate and peanut that don't contribute calories, like cinnamon or other spices.

Cocoa Cabbage Cake Recipe:

Servings: 5

Calories Per Serving: 55(with 2% milk)

Ingredients:

• ~1/4 small-medium head green cabbage
• 1 large egg white
• 7 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp low fat peanut powder
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• Drop vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of baking powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Slice cabbage and pulse in a food processor until a rice consistency is reached.
2. Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing in between, until the batter reaches a creamy texture.
3. Move from food processor into bowl. Crack an egg and separate out the white; mix only the white into the batter.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
5. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray, and fill five cells with the batter. Bake in oven for ~45 minutes.

I spread a little bit of reduced fat greek yogurt with cocoa powder on top of mine. Just an idea. I'll be tweaking the recipe a lot in order to try to perfect the art of making dessert out of vegetables. The texture of these cakes was certainly pleasant, and I'd best describe it as "moist and loose". The texture, I say at the risk of making it sound slightly less appealing, almost seems reminiscent of meatloaf. I think if I cut down the liquid and replace some or all of the milk with yogurt, and omit the baking powder, I could make it more brownie-like. I could also make the cake more fluffy, I'd imagine, by beating the egg white almost into a meringue and folding it in; I'll be trying both of these eventually, and I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.
But in the meantime, we actually have a sweet and healthy chocolate cake to munch on - guilt free!

One more thing: Passover's coming up in not too long, and it wouldn't be very hard at all to make this recipe completely Kosher for Passover, just keep the vanilla and baking powder in mind.

Starting the day with a sweet, healthy breakfast - GAIA OATS

How do you know your day has begun? Maybe you go for a walk, listen to some music, do some yoga. Whatever you do, it's part of a routine. My routine starts with a quick workout, shortly followed by my breakfast. After a bit of experimenting, I think I've come up with a good routine, and that routine is rounded off with a great breakfast. I have no shame in admitting that I eat the same breakfast almost every morning, and I don't regret it one bit. What I eat is filling. It's tasty. It's warm. It's hearty. But what is this wonderful breakfast I speak of?

You can come up with your own name for it, but I call these "Gaia Oats". I'm talking about a tasty oatmeal dish with strong flavor, big volume, and small calories. So what goes into it? Let's start with the obvious:

Oatmeal. Starting preparations the night before, one serving of rolled oats serves as the base of the meal. But oats by themselves are pretty boring, aren't they. You know what isn't boring? Chocolate. About 1 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, to be specific. To counter the natural bitterness of unsweetened cocoa powder, we'll need something sweet. But what's sweet but not too high-calorie? Fruits are, and plums are a prime candidate.

With only around 30 calories each, processing or blending one piece of fruit with a little water into a sauce to cook into our oatmeal will give us the sweetness we need, and also account for around
1/2 cup of the liquid we'll need.

Mix in one egg white and about enough water to make the liquid have a volume of about 1 2/3 cups, excluding the egg white. Add in a dash of vanilla extract, and add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Mix well, and get ready to microwave it. It's gonna go in for five minutes on high. Once it's done, take it out, give it a minute or two to cool a little, and mix in about 1/2 cup more water. Return to the microwave for about 2:30, or until the oats start convexing.

Whenever you add water to this, you'll want to judge what you have based on the consistency. I find that it's good for it, at this point, to have a consistency like that of a thin jelly. Once you're done, put your oats into something to hold them and refrigerate them overnight.

If you can't do it overnight, try to give it at least 2 hours or so; that's usually enough. In the morning, put your oats into a microwave safe bowl. Mine took a gelatin like consistency... amost. That's normal, just use a spoon or something to mix it up a bit.

Now you're gonna return it to the microwave for around five minutes. Let's see what we ended up with.

Look at that! That bowl is full to the brim, and there's still a little left over, too! Here's another angle for perspective's sake:

Have fun with these giant, tasty oats! They taste like chocolate, with a touch of sweetness and just a little tang from the plum. Enjoy!

Gaia Oats Recipe:

Serves: 1

Calories per serving: ~210

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats 1 1/2 tbsp. cocoa powder 1 plum 1 large egg white Pinch of salt Vanilla extract Water Instructions:

Mix oats, cocoa powder, and salt in a microwave-safe bowl or container. Cut plum into eighths, removing the pit. Prepare into a sauce by processing in a food processor or blender with a little bit of water. Add more water to the plum sauce until its total volume is about 1 1/2 cups, or slightly less for a thicker cereal. Crack the egg and separate out the white, mixing it into the plum sauce, then add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing well. Add more water if you want yours to be more runny. Microwave on high for 2:30, then let stand for one minute before eating. You can cook for longer or shorter depending on the volume and desired viscosity of the cereal, but cook for at least 90 seconds to ensure the egg white is cooked.

While I did come up with this recipe, the idea for letting it sit overnight in excess liquid to increase the volume was inspired by a similar post on Chocolate Covered Katy. You may want to check it out.