Oatmeal & Walnut Marble Cake

"Healthier Low Sugar Cake Choice with Oats. Check out my easy homemade recipe."

After mid year exam for my girl, I had a little free time to spare for my own. This afternoon, she went to visit her classmate who lives just next block, claiming that they have to do a social studies project in a team, but deep in my heart, I knew they were spending most time playing than doing project which could be done individually. Well, since exam was over, so be it.. Smile.

I spent my free time with hubby, without kid. And I baked this cake so that they will have it for supper later.

Healthier cake as it is an oatmeal cake with low sugar added. Delicious with interesting bites and mouthfeel, and it was even fuller bites as walnut bits were an addition to it.

Oatmeal:
Oatmeal usually refers to coarsely ground oat groats or oat porridge. There are many types of oats e.g. old-fashioned rolled oats, quick oats, and steel-cut oats. Old fashioned rolled oats are whole oats rolled into flat flakes, and then steamed and lightly toasted; Quick oats made the same way but cut into smaller pieces to cook faster, whilst steel-cut oats are whole raw oats cut into smaller chunks which take longer to prepare. As for instant oats, they are finer and thinner pieces, but usually with addition of salt, sweetener and other flavouring to make it consumable almost instantly.

However, all the oats are generally high content fo complex carbohydrates, low GI and water-soluble fiber which encourages slow disgestion and hence, stabilizes blood levels. All these oats also help to reduce cholesterol level in our body.

Use rolled oats to make this cake, it's OK to use either old-fashioned or quick oats as it's just a matter of heating time with variation of 1 - 5 minutes.

Hubby loves chocolate flavour. To make it less oaty taste, I added also chocolate to create marble butter cake. Otherwise, it will be just simple oat butter cake, if it's without walnut bits and chocolate marble. It's up to you.

By and large, this cake creation wasn't tasted too sweet, yet, aromatic with a touch of buttery as well as chocolatey flavour.

See recipe:

Ingredients (A):
100 ml of water
50 grams of quickcook or old-fashioned rolled oats (or instant oats)
1 tablespoon of condensed milk

Ingredients (B):
200 grams of hard butter, may cut into smaller chunks for easier creaming
90 grams of sugar
3 large eggs
170 grams of plain flour, sieved
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
50 grams of semi sweet baking chocolate bar, melted in a small pot over a pot of simmering water (Double-boiling Method)

Optional:
50 grams of walnut, coarsely crushed and toasted at 150C, for 5 minutes

Utensil:
9" deep round or square baking tin, greased with olive oil or line baking sheet

Method:
1) Mix water, quick oats and condensed milk [Ingredients (A)] in a pot and boil over medium heat till gruey consistency, for 1 minute. Stir occasionally. Heat off and leave aside to cool. (**If using Old-fashioned rolled oats, heat 5 minutes longer. If using Instant oatmeal, omit this heating process. Simply add it into the cake mixture in Step 5.)

2) Preheat oven to 160C, for 20 - 30 minutes.

3) Cream hard butter and sugar in a mixing bowl at medium speed till fluffy, for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, melt chocolate bar with double boiling method listed above. Keep the melted chocolate in the hot water pot as it is, to keep it warm.

4) Reduce speed to low, mix in eggs slowly, in stages (one egg at a time). Add vanilla essence. Then, increase speed to medium again to mix well, for about 3 - 5 minutes.

5) Stop blending. Add in oat mixture, sifted flour and baking powder. Use a plastic spatula to combine well. **(May beat with mixer at low speed, but do not over beat it to avoid cake texture becoming too compact instead of spongy.)

6) Add in walnuts and stir to combine. Then, add in melted chocolate and scatter in the cake mixture with spatula, to create marble pattern.

7) Pour cake mixture into baking tin and place at middle rack in oven to bake for 40 minutes. Leave at rack to cool before removing from tin. Divide into 10 big slices or 16 small slices to serve.

A small slice of my oatmeal & walnut marble cake counts about 200kcal.

Variations: Replace walnut bits with almond flakes or raisins. Or, do without any nuts, simply taste the true oaty flavour!

Tips: Stir in melted chocolate may resulted in full chocolate flavoured cake instead of marble pattern. So, to create nice clear marble pattern, extra effort is needed here. Scoop a small portion of cake mixture out from the main mixture bowl, and place in separate bowl. Stir in the melted chocolate to combine well. Then, return the mixed chocolate portion to the main mixture bowl and use a chopstick to scatter briefly to create marble pattern.
* It's convenient and tasty to use instant oatmeal, but instant package usually comes with additional sugar and other flavouring. Hence, you may opt to reduce the sugar amount by 10 grams.

Ginseng Prawn Herbal Soup

"Ginseng Prawn Herbal Soup tasty and healthy"

Ginseng shrimp herbal soup, or we usually called it, Ginseng prawn herbal soup, is not an usual dish. Diners will be more familiar with Ginseng chicken soup and/ or Drunken prawns, but not so the prawns in Ginseng soup though.. Yes, I guessed so. However, it turned out great. Resembling Drunken Prawns, but this has milder flavour, with more soup in the dish. Great taste, great dish great nutritioned soup!

Easy to cook. You may even boil the soup in slow cooker in the morning, for long hours. Then, simply add in prawns to simmer for 5 minutes, when about to serve as dinner.

See recipe:

Vegetarian Sambal Chilli Squids

"Low-caloric vegetarian Konjac-squids cooked with vegetarian Sambal Chili, delicious taste and interesting biting from this nutritious vegetarian health food."

Yesterday was Chu Yi (初一), the 1st day of Lunar month of May. Of course, we had vegetarian meal for dinner for the whole family.

I bought the vegetarian squid slices which packaged into a nice plastic box. The apperance of this vegetarian squid sliced is almost similar to the real squid slices with cross patterns created on one side of its surface. Beautiful flowCery slices, but these vegetarian squid slices were made from a super low caloric and highly nutritious plant, and this jelly-like health food is called Konjac, in Chinese, 蒟蒻 (Pronounced as: Jǔ Ruò). I got the Konjac-squids from NTUC Fairprice (*Chilled compartment where you may find packeted fish balls related products).

Let's know more about Konjac food. Maybe you will be more familiar with the Japanese term, Konnyaku. Nay~ Konnyaku jelly.. Yes~ it's the same product. Konnyaku consisting of Konjac is widely used in Japanese and Korean food products, now even Chinese vegetarian food.

Konjac health food benefits our body a lot which includes normalizing cholesterol level, prevent high blood pressure, rich in minerals and dietary fiber, etc. As I mentioned previously, it's surprisingly low in calorie with almost no fat in it. Hence, eating these vegetarian squids literally having much opposite effects of eating the real squids. But I can tell you, the texture and mouthfeel of biting the Konjac-squids are almost similar to the real one, and in fact, the vegetarian ones are more bouncy to bite than the meaty-squids.

Diet watcher, feel ease for having more of the 'squid' now! Smile..

Let's see how I cook this:

Luo Han Guo Chinese Herbal Tea (罗汉果凉茶)

"Fruit of Medicine, the natrual sweet fruit, for general well being, and some even claimed for its slimming effect, with regular consumption of it."

Luohan guo (Medicine term as Siraitia grosvenorii), in Chinese, 罗汉果, is a natural sweet fruit which often used as medicinal herbs by Chinese physician.

Luohan guo made into form of beverages, especially herbal tea, commonly sold in many Chinese herbal shops in Singapore. We do not usually use the raw green fruit to cook herbal tea, but get the dried one which has turned into dark brown fruit with hard thin shell. This low-caloric 'fruit of medicine' helps to detoxify body, and hence, some even claimed for its slimming effect, if consume it on regular basis. I drink it regularly mainly to maintain general health so as to eliminate summer heat in the body which may lead to feverish illnesses.

Cook into drinks should be the best way to have it easily and conveniently. And, in fact, it has its natural sweetness, it is not necessary for adding extra amount of sugar into the cooking of Luohan guo drink. However, I liked chewing the winter melon strips in the drink, thus, I chose to add a few strips to enhance not only the taste of this herbal tea, but also creating interesting bites while having the drink.

This herbal tea drink is quick and simple as well as buck saving to cook and drink regularly, for general well being.

Steamed Fish Tail with Whole Black Bean (豆豉蒸鱼尾）

"Steamed fish, a healthy choice on your plate."

There was this gentleman reader requested me to post my recipe of steamed Song fish head with whole black bean some time back.

Yes, I do like steamed fish with whole black bean for its delicate briny flavour. And of course, steamed fish is the heathier choice on the plates.

I used fish tail instead of fish head this time. It's simply personal preference of more fleshy portion while fish head is definitely good in this recipe, too (I usually use fish head in curry recipe.. smile).

Here you go:

Homemade Mini Shrimp Toast

"My creation of shrimp toast, have it like crunchy bread squares, or luxury version of French toast with shrimp paste topping."

This cute and handy open-face toast is often a hit for snack/ tea time when small and light bites are needed, and minced shrimp is the shortcut tips of the busy day. However, all shrimp toasts are not created equal, mine is tailored to taste homely with regards for your health… less oil, less fry.

Children will love it, if you serve with an addition of salad cream or mayonnaise. It creates kind of refreshing bites together with the soft and moist shrimp paste in the palate. But for me, as a regular diet-watcher, no cream, of course, I sprinkled a touch of Italian herbs and coarsely grounded black pepper when served.

16 squares were made within an hour, from handling the prawn till ready to serve. Yes, quick and delicious homemade snackies, and even as breakfast, like I did this morning.

See recipe: