Carrot cake

My favourite cake is very much out of bounds while trying to lose weight, so I thought I'd try a little experiment, by combining the ever-so-succesful oat pancake recipe, the half-syn roulade recipe and a traditional carrot cake recipe.

The result was way better than I had hoped for. The cake was light, moist and tasty, with the consistency of a bread pudding, and the taste was very much carrot cake.

I made one with icing and one without, and we both preferred the naked version.

I bought some 4-inch children's cake tins yesterday in The Range for £1 each, and they were ideal to make two small cakes. I am sure it would work with one slightly larger tin too, but you will have to adjust the baking time accordingly.

Serves 4*

1 Syn on Extra Easy**
** Providing you use the oats as your Healthy Extra B

* I made two cakes, and we did eat a whole one each, but half a cake would be enough for one person really, we were just being greedy.

You could, of course, omit the sultanas and make the cake almost syn free, as there is only ¼ syn in the baking powder. I thought the sultanas were worth the syns though.

70g porridge oats

1 tub Müllerlight mandarin yogurt

2 small carrots, finely grated

½ cup sweetener or to taste

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground nutmeg

20g sultanas (total 3 syns)

2 eggs, separated

½ tsp baking powder (total ¼ syns)

Icing (optional)

2 tbsp quark

2 tbsp sweetener

Start the day before you want to eat the cake. Soak the oats in the yogurt with 1 tbsp water, the spices and sweetener overnight. In a separate small bowl, soak the sultanas in just enough water to cover them.

The next day, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the baking powder. I find it is best at this stage to taste the oat mixture and adjust the spices or sweetener if necessary. Mix together the oats, grated carrots and sultanas with the egg yolks and stir thoroughly. Carefully fold in the egg whites and pour into two greased 4-inch cake tins. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and the top feels spongy. Mine took a bout 17 minutes in total.

Mix together the quark and sweetener for the icing if using, and spread across the cake.

Enjoy a guilt free cake with your morning coffee! 

Blueberry Cheesecake (Almost Syn Free)

After the success with the half syn roulade, I decided to take the recipe one step further and make something else from it. I adore cheesecake and an idea was beginning to take shape..... The secret to the crunchy bottom lies in the buckwheat, which is syn free, unlike crushed up biscuits mixed with butter.

Serves 8 (or two very greedy people)

½ syn for the whole cake

generous ½ cup buckwheat

2 tbsp sweetener

1 tbsp ground ginger

½ tub quark

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp sweetener

500g tub fat free fromage frais

1 ½ tubs quark

1 cup sweetener

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 sachet gelatine*

400g fresh or frozen blueberries

* The cake was really quite soft, which was rather nice, but if I was serving it for a dinner party, I would probably use 2 sachets or 1½ in future as it started to droop fairly quickly.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 23cm spring form cake tin by spraying it with Fry Light. Heat a frying pan to medium-high heat and dry toast the buckwheat until they start to brown, 3-5 minutes. Switch off the pan, add 2 tbsp sweetener, the ginger and ca 1 tbsp water to mix it all in. Stir until all the water has evaporated. Quickly line the bottom of the cake tin with the buckwheat and leave to cool.

Separate the eggs. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks with half of one of the tubs of quark, the baking powder and 4 tbsp sweetener. Carefully fold in to the egg whites. Pour mixture on top of the buckwheat in the tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin. Don't worry if the cake looks very high at this stage, it will settle down when it has cooled.

Using an electric whisk, beat together the fromage frais, the rest of the quark, ½ cup of sweetener and vanilla essence. Dissolve the contents of the gelatine in 120ml boiling water and beat well to ensure it is properly mixed. Allow to cool a little before gently mixing in to the fromage frais mixture. Spread the mixture over the cake and leave for at least two hours to set.

Finally top with blueberries, remove the sleeve and serve.

This is one of the best experiments I have done for a very long time, and I can see me making this often as Husband absolutely loved it too!