I'm currently trying to eat 'clean' - no refined sugars or processed foods - along with trying not to eat many carbs. Trust me when I say that on that diet, sweet treats are few and far between. So I was at a bit of a loose end this afternoon when I had a real hankering for a warm slice of cake to have with my afternoon cup of tea. I suddenly remembered that I'd seen people post protein mug or bowl cakes on instagram - cakes made with protein powder and cooked in the microwave. I did a lot of scouting around the internet and finally found a recipe on a MyFitnessPal forum. I have the Cookies and Cream flavour Whey Protein from My Protein which I bought a few weeks ago, it's only £12.89 for a kilogram so it's really good value and I thought it would be amazing in milkshakes (it is!) and in baking. The recipe said to use vanilla protein powder but it was still delicious with the flavour I had.
Ingredients:
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tsp sugar or sugar substitute (I use Truvia baking blend)
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 tbsp almond milk
1 tbsp peanut butter
Instructions:
Mix all the dry ingredients in a mug (protein powder, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt) with a fork until well blended and there are no clumps. Add in the egg and almond milk and mix until smooth. Drop the peanut butter into the center of the chocolate mixture and press down to submerge. Microwave for around 1 minute on high (give or take some time depending on your microwave), but watch it! It will start to bubble over the top. If this happens, stop microwaving, press batter back into mug with fork, and continue microwaving. When finished, cake should be cooked but still very moist. It is okay if not all the batter has cooked!
This is what it looked like pre-microwaving:
Mine took about 1 minute 30 seconds in the end, when I took it out it looked like this:
It slid out of the mug easily and exposed a gooey base of peanut butter goodness!
I put the ingredients into My Fitness Pal to save it as a recipe and it says it has:
311 calories
4g carbs
16g fat
31g protein
455g sodium
4g sugar
I worked it out to be 7 WW Pro Points but I could be wrong. Whatever diet or plan you're on it's a great way to get protein and satisfy that sugar craving without going overboard on calories or filling up on the naughty kinds of sugars. I served mine with blueberries and greek yoghurt and it was really yummy.
It was a much firmer consistency than cake normally is, very very filling and really felt like such a treat. I'll definitely be making it again and looking up more recipes.
Let us know if you make this or if you try any other protein cake recipes!
