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This is much like the Microwave Low-Carb Orange Cream Cake posted previously. Please see that recipe for photos and more detailed directions for a similar cake. I apologize for the exotic ingredients, but if you’ve been eating low carb for a while, you probably have most of these ingredients on hand. If not, I’ll detail some possible substitutions after the recipe.

Microwave Low-Carb German Chocolate Cake
2 servings

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil, melted

1 tablespoon coconut flour
4 tablespoons Splenda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 egg
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (use the 1/4 tsp measure twice instead of getting another spoon dirty)

Directions:

1. Melt butter and oil in large coffee mug or 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup in microwave.
2. Add dry ingredients.
3. Add wet ingredients.
4. Mix well.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 3 minutes.
6. Remove HOT container from microwave, remove plastic wrap carefully, and let stand for 1 minute.
7. Turn onto plate; cut in half and serve.

As written, each serving contains 341 calories, 32.9 g fat, 10.0 g total carbohydrate, 1.5 g dietary fiber, 4.3 g protein.

The following substitutions should still result in a similar cake, though the flavor will vary and the nutritional information, of course, will be different: Any oil, including more butter, may be substituted for the virgin coconut oil. Any flour can be substituted for the coconut flour, though I suspect you’ll need to use 1.5 or 2 tablespoons to get a similar texture. Conversely, you can also use more shredded coconut and omit the flour, but the texture will be different. Sugar or stevia can be substituted for the Splenda (though I’m not fond of stevia with chocolate). Milk, cream, or plain yogurt may be substituted for the sour cream. It is possible that coconut milk could be substituted for the coconut oil and sour cream, but I haven’t tried that, so I don’t know how much to use.

I’ll likely tackle red velvet cake next, though almond pound cake might be the next recipe to go public because I think that one will be easier to develop. I’m still having a lot of fun with these little cakes!

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of microwave cake recipes going around, sporting names like 5-minute cake, 3-minute cake, and even a 1-minute muffin! It takes me longer than 5 minutes to make all of them. However, they’re easily adaptable to low carb. And the resulting cake is small enough that you can eat all if it with minimal guilt (though I consider them to be 2-serving cakes).

These recipes are incredibly friendly to substitution. For the almond flour, you can substitute regular flour or another nut flour or, I’m told, even protein powder or flaxseed. You can substitute coconut oil or another fat for the butter. You can use real sugar or stevia instead of Splenda. You can try different flavors. (I’m working on German Chocolate Cake next.)

I’ve been playing with the basic recipes and have come up with one of my own. I’ve been a bit irritated by how many utensils I have to use to make these cakes, so I’ve streamlined that some, too.

Microwave Low-Carb Orange Cream Cake

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons almond flour
4 tablespoons Splenda
1 egg
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Hardware:

Cutting board (to cut butter and keep counter clean)
A 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup (I am told a large coffee mug also works well)
Knife (to cut butter, aid in transferring sour cream from spoon to Pyrex, and cut the cake in half)
Fork (for mixing)
1/4 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon measuring spoons
Plastic wrap
Microwave

Directions:

1. Cut 3 tablespoons of butter from the stick of butter.
2. Melt butter in Pyrex container. The goal is to heat it enough to melt it completely but to allow it to cool some before the egg is added, so it doesn’t cook the egg on contact.
3. Add almond flour, Splenda, egg, sour cream, baking powder, and orange extract. Use the 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon twice to get enough orange extract, rather than getting another spoon dirty.
4. Mix well. If you don’t mix it well enough, you will have streaks of egg in your cake. It should look like the picture below. Only not as blurry.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove hot Pyrex container from microwave; remove plastic wrap, taking care not to steam your hand; and let cake stand for 1 minute before upending onto a plate.

6. Cut in half and serve.

As written, each serving contains 307 calories, 29.1 g fat, 7 g total carbohydrate, 1.5 g dietary fiber, 6.0 g protein.

I plan to try this cake with stevia soon, as I prefer it to Splenda. As I said before, I’m working on a German chocolate version, with red velvet on the distant horizon (though I’ll likely leave out the “red”). If you try this or a similar recipe, I’d love to know about your experience!

These are the recipes that were on the old web site. Kind of a walk down memory lane for me, actually.

Banana Nut Muffins
Cornbread
Bisquick Impossible Taco Pie
Calzones
Chicken with Barbecue Sauce
Crock-Pot BBQ Pork
Hearty Bean Soup
Pecan Chicken
Coconut Cream Pie
Lemon Bars
Pecan Pralines
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
The Ever-Changing Coffee Cake

According to this AJC article, Georgia residents will be able to purchase wine online starting on July 1.

While my favorite California wineries, including Pedroncelli and Sausal, haven’t yet updated their web sites to reflect this change, I am sure that they will work with Georgia residents to fill orders under the new law as soon as it goes into effect.

Cheers!

This recipe was adapted from Joy of Cooking, my favorite cookbook. It doesn’t produce a terribly attractive custard, but Jefferson seems to like it.

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1/2 cup Splenda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups half and half, heavy cream, or whipping cream
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Whisk eggs, Splenda, and salt just until blended.

3. Heat cream in a small saucepan on medium to high heat just until steaming, watching closely and stirring occasionally.
4. As soon as cream steams, remove from heat. Pour slowly into the egg mixture while whisking. This prevents the heat of the milk from curdling the eggs.

5. Add vanilla and cocoa. This will produce an ugly mess. I have never gotten the mixture any smoother than this.

6. Prepare a custard bath by lining a large pan with a dish towel, putting 6 custard cups on top of the towel, and then filling the large pan to about halfway up the custard cups with hot tap water. Fill the custard cups, trying to distribute the mixture evenly between the cups.

7. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 40-60 minutes, until set. Remove from oven and carefully remove the cups from the pan and allow to cool for a few minutes. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Enjoy!

The carb total varies depending on what kind of cream you use, but there are approximately 5-7 g of carbohydrate per serving.

1 shot Frangelico
1 shot Kahlua
1 can of Sprite Zero

Enjoy!

(Please note this is NOT a diet drink. Sprite Zero was what I had on hand when I first concocted this, and I suspect regular Sprite would make it too sweet.)

Perhaps this is not the time of year to be writing about this, but the other day, a friend of mine was wistfully wondering if there was such a thing as summer camp for adults. I already knew of a few places and events that might qualify, but I thought it’d be fun to take a look around and see what else I could come up with. Here are a few that captured my interest:

Here in Georgia, how about an overnight trip to the culinary studio at Chateau Elan? Not a summer camp but more seasonally appropriate (and practically in my back yard), make a gingerbread house at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge? There’s plenty of peace and quiet to be found at The Monastery of The Holy Spirit.

As far as activities go, Camp Ocean Pines in California has upcoming workshops about building stone walls, stone carving, and quilting. The 2008 calendar is not available yet, but Idyllwild Arts, also in California, offered a tremendous number of workshops and classes in 2007 regarding painting, sculpture, poetry, and more. In Oakland, there’s the Mosaic Summer Camp for Adults, and I personally can’t think of arts in California without thinking of Mendocino.

Moving on to states I visit less often, for perhaps one of the best outdoor/sports/nature experiences, how about rafting through the Grand Canyon? In Michigan, the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp has summer programs for adults, including for musicians (various instruments and ability levels). That reminds me of one of the camps I’d already heard about, Camp Bluegrass in Texas.

After spending a few minutes with a search engine, I’m pretty sure that, no matter what your fondest memories of summer camp, the activities, the scenery, sporting activities, etc., there’s a facility or institution that will allow you to re-visit that as an adult.

I tried this recipe from Real Simple the other day, and it was so good I thought I should share it with you! This is very likely to become part of our regular rotation of dinners. Since it was the first time I tried the recipe, I made a few minor mistakes (I let the water/coconut milk for the rice boil over, and I mis-read the instructions and had to pull the chicken back out of the pan and cut it into smaller pieces), but I’m sure it will be easier the next time around!

Anyway, the chicken and peppers are sauteed with garlic, the rice is boiled in coconut milk, and the beans are seasoned with cumin. While these flavors may seem disparate, putting them together resulted in a fabulous meal!

The only thing I’ll change is that Jefferson said that the coconut flavor of the rice was a little too strong (though I’ve never met a coconut dish that was too strong, myself), so I’ll either use a smaller can of coconut milk or make more rice next time to soften the flavor.

Whoops! I almost forgot to mention that I automatically substitute brown rice for just about any other kind of rice in a recipe, and that’s what I used in this recipe.

I don’t like to write book reviews, preferring to quote from what I’m reading and let the book speak for itself. However, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink didn’t really lend itself to this method of promotion. Frankly, I couldn’t put it down! I was too interested in what he was going to say next to stop and blog about it. Dr. Wansink talks about why we eat and how we choose what to eat and how much of it to eat, and his statements are backed up with research conducted by a variety of universities, the military, and other reputable institutions.

It turns out we don’t eat “because we’re hungry,” and we don’t stop when “we’re full.” I’ll leave the intricacies of how and when and why we eat (and stop) to the book, but some of the material presented is counter-intuitive and could have potentially far-reaching results in various food-, nutrition-, and diet-related industries and fields. It is a fascinating book in part because it’s The Long Tail or The Tipping Point for food.

However, I am much more interested in how it applies in my kitchen. While this book is primarily focused on research results, there is information on how to mindlessly shave calories off of one’s diet instead of mindlessly consuming them, how to make healthy foods more attractive to a consumer (even a consumer sitting at my dining room table), and how to recognize and resist cues that may encourage us to eat too much.

Dr. Wansink does not claim that there will be dramatic results if you apply the principles of this book. I believe he indicated that the average reader could painlessly lose 10 pounds in a year. However, since this is not a diet but a whole new way of looking at food, the lifetime weight and health benefits could be enormous.

Again, the book is Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, and here is the related web site.

(I should also add that this is not a book about nutrition, nor is it a book about eating disorders or eating to fill an emotional void.)

Bizarre combination? You bet! I just stumbled on the fact that the same author is writing screenplays for Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, both movies planned to be released in 2008.

Who would have the capacity to write both? Why, the author of Braveheart and We Were Soliders, of course! Oh, wait. . . that’s a bit of a bias against Atlas Shrugged, isn’t it?

Since I really enjoyed both books, I’ll just wait and see how things develop and keep an eye on Randall Wallace!

(How in the world to do you fit a bazillion-page book into movie length? Guess that’s a question for another day.)

Related products:
Atlas Shrugged
The Screwtape Letters
Braveheart
We Were Soldiers

Every time I think of the Screwtape Letters, I think of John Cleese reading the book. The recording is fabulous if you can find it; it appears to be out of print.

. . . and then. . . when I think of John Cleese, I think of his documentary Wine for the Confused, which I also highly recommend.

The train of thought stops here . . . for now.