But let me tell you what it DOES NOT MEAN!

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I’m not the only one seeing faces in food!

David’s molasses

I know…you’re all wondering….

What an elegant dessert….
a souffle, perhaps?
molten chocolate center?
did it take hours to make?

I am pleased to present to you, my Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake.  Never before in the history of desserts has there ever been such an luscious cake that is this good for your inner chocoholic self.

Yes. you heard me right. Not just “low fat” “low calorie” or even “no calorie”

Its NEGATIVE CALORIE.  Meaning, you earn credits for eating this dessert.

So, what makes this cake negative calorie?  Well first off, I made it with:

and replace the 1/2 cup of oil with this:

and nuke for 5 minutes in one of these:

WTF?!?!?  How dare she post a recipe on a food blog using Betty Crocker and a microwave?!?  Isn’t she violating section 4.6.2 of the Food Blog Code of Conduct? 

So, smack me silly with a violation, but I know that one night this week…oh…right around 9:00pm….when no one is watching…you are going to try this cake.  You’re asking yourself if this Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake from Betty C. tastes as delicious, luscious, moist and rich as it looks. Here’s your answer:

Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake

I always make this with Betty Crocker Super Moist Cake Mix Dark Chocolate (the one with a Hershey’s logo on it). I’m sure it will taste just as good with other brands of cake mix, but this is my preference. The ingredients below are based on the back of the box (with the exception of the banana) If you use a different brand of cake mix, follow their instructions for ingredients, replacing the banana for the oil or butter.  Of course, if you aren’t on a diet - ditch the banana idea and just use the oil/butter as the recipe calls for.

Note on the banana: It should be a super-ripe brownish banana…like in the photo above.  If you don’t have a super ripe banana and can’t wait - just use the oil/butter…the recipe just won’t work well with a firm, yellow banana.

Note on the microwave times:  Each microwave is different.  Use the times I have below and test with toothpick. Just note your final time so that you won’t have to check for doneness next time.

Prep time: 3 minutes  Cook time: 5-8 minutes (depends on how many you are making)
Serves: Depends on how hungry you are.  Makes about 8 ramekins

1 box Betty Crocker SuperMoist Cake Mix (Dark Chocolate) - or your fav cake mix
1 very ripe banana, smushed well with a fork
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups water
Cooking spray to spray the ramekins

In big bowl:  Smushed banana + eggs + water (whisk well)
Stir in cake mix (Stir vigorously for a couple of minutes until well mixed)
Pour into ramekins (sprayed lightly with cooking spray) until filled 2/3 full

Every microwave is different - here are some guidelines:
For 2 ramekins:  microwave on MEDIUM-HIGH (I set my microwave on power strength 8 ) for 5 minutes
For 3-4 ramekins:  6 minutes
For 5-6 ramekins:  7 minutes

Check with toothpick to see if cake is done.  Mushy cake mix stuck to toothpick? Add another 30 seconds.  Cake crumbs on toothpick? Done.

Top with warm chocolate sauce and maybe a little drizzle of reduced pomegranate juice:

But..but…but….how do you get negative calories with that???

Ok. brace yourselves.  Try to follow along now:

Can you see me on late-night infomercials pushing my Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake Diet???

Move over Atkins…here comes something steamy-er….

In case you don’t have ramekins, just pour in a 9×11-ish glass Pyrex pan (something microwave safe please) until batter reaches half way up the sides.  Microwave for 11 minutes medium-high, check for doneness. Cut into nice squares and enjoy.

Other ideas that I haven’t tried yet:
-drop a big chunk-o-chocolate in the middle of batter in each ramekin (will it turn into a molten chocolate cake?)
-add raspberries to batter
-applesauce instead of banana? Reader Renee suggested adding 1T oil to applesauce to keep moist

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BONUS! And there’s more!

Look what happens when I take a white boy to a Chinese market! <== but please don’t click that if you’re a vegetarian

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Look who is making Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake!
Email me jaden (at) steamykitchen (dot) com - and I’ll add you to the list.

Nine Day Holiday

Three Dog Kitchen

I’m Chinese, born in Hong Kong. My husband, Scott, is Scottish-German, born in Buffalo, New York. Boy oh boy, our kids are insanely lucky! Not only do they get red envelopes full of money during Chinese New Year, but they also score big time on Halloween, Lunar Festival, Christmas, birthdays, Dragon Festival and Easter.

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Neither Scott nor I are overly religious (meaning, if I was in deep-shit, praying “Dear God” probably wouldn’t get past His screener.) We decided early on that perhaps we could skirt around the religious aspect of holidays and Sundays by creating meaning through special family rituals that we celebrated when we were kids. For example, hand-knitting our Christmas stockings, eating long-life noodles for birthdays and baking pumpkin-shaped cookies from a cutter made by PaPa. Family traditions, passed on from generation to generation are more meaningful than just chocolate Easter bunnies, a Santa who picks the lock at our front door and prancing around the neighborhood dressed as Elvis or Elvira.

Our little kids, who are 2 ½ years old and 4 years old, don’t fully understand the meaning of “tradition” quite yet, but they know that every Sunday morning is reserved for German Oven Pancakes. It’s an incredibly easy recipe that even the youngest can help out with. Go ahead, ditch the electric mixer and make this by hand in a big glass bowl and a whisk.

Instead of cooking individual pancakes on the stovetop, the entire batch of batter bakes in a skillet. Since our kids make the whole thing - from beginning to end, we really never know what shape will emerge…sometimes the pancake is flat with a high curved edge, sometimes it has puffs, valleys and crevices perfect for hiding chocolate chips.

We all gather in front of the oven window and watch the pancake rise and form. The edges are light and crisp, perfectly browned. We usually top it with in season fruits, slather it with whipped cream and eat it right out of the skillet, tearing pieces with our hands. My older son, Andrew, loves the golden edges while Nathan goes straight for the soft pillows in the middle. It’s our Sunday morning family tradition and hopefully, it will be one that will be passed on for many more generations to come.

Straight out of the oven: it can come out with a giant puff in the middle:

or really super-high sides:

but either way, its really YUMMY!

German Oven Pancakes

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, sifted

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon of salt

Preheat oven to 450F. If you have a convection oven, set it at 425F - the pancakes rise even higher on the convection setting.

Lightly beat eggs in a large bowl. Stir in the milk, melted butter, salt and sugar. Gradually add flour to egg mixture, a spoonful at a time. Have your child help you by spooning the flour in while you whisk by hand. Make sure the flour is well incorporated in the batter with no lumps, but do not over-mix, as you want to keep the pancake light.

Lightly spray a 9″-11″ oven-safe skillet with cooking spray. Pour batter in the skillet. Bake 12-18 minutes, just until the edges are golden. Check your pancake at the 12 minute mark. It’s fun to turn on the oven light and watch the pancake form!

Note: Try experimenting with different pans and skillets - just as long as you use something at least 9″ wide and oven-safe. You could also divide the batter into two smaller pans and have them bake side by side and see which one rises higher. Just make sure that your oven rack is in the middle position or lower. Top with fruit granola, yogurt, powdered sugar, syrup, toasted almonds or fruit butters. Drizzle with caramel, chocolate syrup, honey or maple syrup.

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Other recipes that my kids love:

Spam Fried Rice

The Perfect Loaf of French Bread

Baby Back Ribs with Asian Orange Ginger Glaze

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Look who won the Szechuan Peppercorn contest!

LPC- email me your address! jan (at) steamykitchen (dot) com

If the food gods could create the most perfect dessert, it would combine my three favorite ingredients: espresso, chocolate and dark rum. Surprisingly, Tiramisu is very easy to make, especially since it sounds so fancy and costs $8.95 at an Italian restaurant. If you don’t have an espresso maker, you can just brew super-strong coffee or even use instant espresso granules in a pinch. You can make Tiramisu in a large pan, or as I prefer, in cute little individual dessert cups. These were made in ice cream bowls I found on sale at Marshalls.

The recipe is adapted from Barefoot Contessa, however I have made some minor changes to the recipe. The biggest change that I made was the size of the pan. Ina Garten’s recipe calls for a 9×12 pan. However, I made the recipe 3 times using that sized pan, and each time I ran out of the marscapone creme and the Espresso Syrup for dipping. Its very frustrating when you’ve run out of an ingredient - especially for this dessert because once you’ve laid the soaked ladyfingers in the pan, you can’t really move them or they fall apart. I’ve been very successful using an 8.5 x 8.5 x 2.5 Pyrex square pan or my individual dessert cups pictured above which hold about 1.5 cup capacity.

I also found that the original recipe left me with runny marscapone creme - I’ve modified the technique to include whisking the marscapone to lighten and fluff just a bit. If you don’t soften the marscapone cheese to room temp before mixing it in, your creme mixture will be lumpy. If you don’t cool your espresso before adding to the egg yolk/sugar, the creme mixture becomes too runny.

In case you do run out of the Marscapone creme before you finish assembly - you can just spread the creme as evenly as you can and then top with whipped creme to cover. I often use whipped creme to add more height to the dessert. Sometimes I sneak a little more dark rum into the whipped creme too!

Barefoot Contessa’s Tiramisu

Adapted from Barefoot Contessa - Family Style

(serves 6-8)

6 extra large egg yolks, at room temperature (or 7 large egg yolks)
1/4 cup sugar

Marscapone Creme
1/4 cup dark rum
1/4 cup espresso or strong coffee - cooled to room temperature
16 oz marscapone cheese - softened to room temperature

Espresso Syrup for dipping
1/3 cup dark rum
1 1/2 cups espresso or strong coffee - cooled to room temperature
30-40 Italian lady fingers
Dark chocolate bar, shaved with vegetable peeler

8.5 x 8.5 x 2.5 pan or 6 individual dessert cups (my dessert cups pictured above hold 1.5 cup capacity). If you have a slightly larger or smaller pan, thats ok too.

1. Spoon out the marscapone into a bowl – with fork or whisk, whisk the marscapone just a bit to soften and make it easier to mix in later. In your mixer with whisk attachment,whisk yolks and sugar on high for 5 minutes. It should be creamy and light yellow. Lower speed to medium. Add the cooled espresso, rum and marscapone.

2. In a bowl, mix all of the ingredients of the Espresso Syrup together. Set up your assembly line - from left to right:

Ladyfingers - Espresso Syrup - Pan/Indiv Cups - Marscapone Creme

Quickly dip the ladyfinger in the Espresso Syrup - a 2-second dip is all that you need. If you dip too long, too much of the syrup gets absorbed and the ladyfinger will get too soggy to lift out of the bowl. The ladyfinger should still be a little hard - don’t worry, they will all soften up in the refrigerator. Line the dipped ladyfingers on the bottom of the pan/cups). Follow this with another layer of dipped ladyfingers. Finish with remaining Marscapone Cream. Sprinkle chocolate shavings on top. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Here is my recipe for Crab Fried Rice. I did write another post on fried rice with some similar material and goes a little more in-depth, its a must read The Secrets to the Best Chinese Fried Rice. Fish sauce is used in a lot of Southeast Asian cooking, especially Thai and Vietnamese. It has a nice salty-sweet flavor to it, and you use it very sparingly, like Anchovy paste. A little goes a long ways! There are several brands of fish sauce, the best one I’ve found so far is called “Three Crabs” Good fish sauce should be the color of brewed tea. Anything darker (like the color of soy sauce) is a lower quality brand.

Chinese sausage is a wonderful ingredient. Its sweet, salty, slightly smoky. Unopened in its package, it will last 3 months refrigerated. After opening, wrap it up and refrigerate. The sausage will last for another month in the refrigerator. Dice the sausage into ¼” cubes. For the best flavor, start with a dry sauté pan or wok set on medium heat. Add sausage and turn to low. The fat will melt (render) and in 7 minutes, remove the sausage leaving the fat. This is where a ton of flavor is! Use this fat to fry the rest of the ingredients. The sausage is smoked, preserved, dried and sold in packages of 10-12 links. The Chinese word for this is: “Lap Cheong” I brought this sausage back home from a recent trip to California (to celebrate Chinese New Year with family). My mom drove us to a friend’s house to pick up a large bag of Lop Cheong. Her friend hand-makes these sausages without any artificial preservatives.

Crab & Lap Cheong (Chinese Sausage) Fried Rice

Crab & Marinade mixture
1 can crab (6-8oz)
1/2 t grated fresh ginger (grate on rasp grater)
1 teasp cooking wine
1/4 teasp sesame oil
Salt & Pepper
2 Eggs, beaten
3 cups cooked rice, break up the chunks
2 stalks scallions minced
1/2 cup frozen vegetable mixture (peas/corn/carrot) – defrosted for 15 min
2 teasp fish sauce 2 teasp soy sauce
1/2 cup diced Chinese sausage
1 teasp cooking wine

1. Marinate the Crab: Drain all the water from the can of crab meat. Marinate with list of ingredients above.

2. Fry Sausage, Crab & Eggs: Heat up your wok to medium-high. Add the Chinese sausage to the wok, turn the heat down to med-low. Cook until the sausage releases its fat – about 5 minutes. Remove sausage, leaving as much oil in wok as possible. Turn heat to med-high. Add eggs to wok. Add crab to wok. Fry the mixture gently until eggs cooked through but still very soft. Remove, leaving as much oil in wok as possible.

3. Fry Rice: You should have about 1T of oil in the wok. If not, add cooking oil to the wok. Turn heat to high. Once the wok is hot, add scallions, stir fry for 15 seconds. Add the rice – breaking up as many chunks at possible. Let the rice heat up in the wok. Add vegetables. Stir-fry until all is hot. Add fish sauce, soy, salt & pepper Add the Chinese sausage, egg/crab mixture. Stir fry until all ingredients are combined and steaming hot. —- If you have the time, read my other post on Secrets of Making the Best Chinese Fried Rice