Whilst I love the idea of a cake that fills you up and hits that sweet spot I don't enjoy the recipes that tell you to add low-fat, flavoured yogurts sweeteners or low calorie hot chocolate powder so I had a go at replacing these ingredients with more natural, if slightly higher syn-ed ones. I enjoyed it but if you like your cakes sweet then you might want to switch to sweetener instead of honey or add more honey and more dried fruit, it depends how many syns you have to play with. Nuts would also be a nice addition
Note: Some Slimming Worlders claim that making a cake from couscous is 'Food Abuse' as it is using couscous as a substitute for flour but my interpretation of that rule is that it is only Abuse if ground and used in the same way as flour. If you think I'm wrong then don't follow the recipe, it's all good. However if you leave me a comment telling me I am wrong I WILL EAT YOU.
You cannot see any dried fruit in this at all (25g is not much) but I promise there was some. |
Ingredients:
8fl oz/240ml semi skimmed milk (just under 1 HExa)
40z couscous (Free on EE or Green)
2 eggs (Free)
1tsp baking soda or powder (0.5 syn)
1 teaspoon honey - or more if you can spare the syns (1 syn per tsp)
25g mixed dried fruit - or more if you like (3.5 syns)
4 tspn cinnamon (Free)
Pinch of salt (Free)
Whole loaf = 5 syns. Mine made 5 hefty slices so 1 syn per slice unless you add more fruit or honey.
If you don't use the milk as a HEXa add 4.5 Syns to the whole loaf.
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 190C
Gently warm the milk, stirring in the cinnamon and honey until it dissolves.
Put the couscous in a bowl and stir in the milk mixture to soak for 10 minutes
Whisk the eggs and the baking soda together and add this to the couscous once the 10 mins are up.
Also add the mixed dried fruit and salt and stir.
You should now have a fairly sloppy mixture that may be gently foaming due to the baking soda. Pour this into a lined or silicon loaf tin.
Bake in oven for 30 minutes. Check on it a few times and if the top is over-browning lay tinfoil or baking parchment over the top.
Turn out onto wire wrack to cool.