Low sugar fiber rich cassava cake with flax
Cassava (yuca) is the ingredient for making tapioca. This is a classic Filipino dessert. Tastes a little like a baked sticky rice dessert, another festive food for the holidays. If you follow most of the cassava cake recipes online, it's way too sweet for my standard. It will cause huge spikes of blood sugar for diabetic or pre-diabetic people. For this reason, I made three modifications in the recipe: reduce sugar, increase dietary fiber by adding wheat bran or wheat germ and add omega-3 and fiber with flax seed flour. The goal is hoping to lower the overall glycemic index of this dessert by reducing sugar and increasing fiber content. The result is fantastic, light and nutritious, giving you a peace of mind eating it. The coconut sport or macapuno is the young fruit of a kind of coconut tree. It's delicious and has a nutty flavor. The only problem is that it's sold in cans soaked in heavy syrup, with tons of sugar. I haven't been able to locate any brand that has low or no sugar. Let me know if you find any. Before then, just add it with caution.
A. Container and bake wares
- Mixing bowl 1
- 13x9 bake pan 1
- Olive oil or canola oil spray 1 can
B. Cake
- Frozen grated cassava 2 packs or 2lb (need to completely defrost)
- Sweetened condensed milk 1/3 can (14oz can)
- Evaporated milk 1 can (12oz can)
- Coconut milk 1 1/2 can (14oz can)
- Coconut sport or macapuno 1/2 can (12oz can)
- Wheat bran or germ or both 1/2 cup total
- Flax seed flour 1/2 cup
C. Topping
- Egg yolks 2
- Sweetened condensed milk 1/6 can (14oz can)
- Coconut milk or evaporated milk 1/2 can (14oz can)
- Coconut sport or macapuno 1/4 can (12oz can)
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Completely defrost the grated cassava and mix all ingredients in B for the cake part.
- Spary the baking pan with olive or canola oil. Pour in the mixed B ingredients. Put in middle rack of the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes.
- While baking the cake part, prepare topping by mixing ingredients in C.
- Take the cake out of the oven when done. Pour the topping mixture onto the cake. Take care to evenly distribute the macapuno strings on the surface. Bake under the same temperature for 15-20 minute.
- Increate the oven temperatue to high or set oven to broil on Hi and broil for 2-4 minutes. When the surface is slightly golden brown, take it out immediately and the cake is done! I usually watch it during the 2-4 minutes or broiling to prevent from burning it.
The freshly baked cake is very soft, but some people like to eat warm and soft cake. I like to let it sit in room temperature for a couple of hours so the cake is hardened slightly and has a chewy texture. The cooled macapuno is also hardened to gove it a nutty flavor. It's yummy
.
