Apple Cinnamon Cake

You know by now that desserts are one of my downfalls.  

I can't be trusted with a pan of brownies or cake or the like.  

Even if they're sugar free, low fat, low point I still find I want to polish off the whole pan.

That's part of why you don't see me doing a lot of dessert posts.

But, I am learning to love mug cakes and other single serving type desserts.

I saw this recipe on WW's Connect and thought it looked relatively easy.

Unfortunately sometimes it's hard to get all the info on there.  It's not quite like finding the recipe in a book.

And, if you'll also remember I'm not much of a baker, as in I've done a very minimal amount of it.  

So, this is an honest post of what really happened when I tried to make this dish.  :)

Ingredients 

1 serving of WW's apple cinnamon oatmeal DRY

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 large egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

Instructions

Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.  Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl and then add to the pan.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.

Soooo,......  here's what really happened when I went to make this.

The person who originally posted this had down to use the WW oatmeal already made with water. 

She later posted that even though this was the recipe she had seen elsewhere, she herself did not use water.

This update was posted AFTER I had already tried to make it.  

So here we have TAKE 1:

When I microwaved this it poofed up and over the mug making a sticky mess. 

As you can see it's a wet pile of mush with no shape whatsoever.  It didn't come together even cooking it longer.  

TAKE 2:

I did not use the water this time.

So, this one turned out much better.  You've probably noticed that the instructions above say to bake it. 

Well, again, I saw this AFTER I had already made two cakes.  It was very hard to read, very small print.

But, here's the bottom line- I microwaved this for around 2 minutes.  

It tasted good, not great, but good.  

Since I found the first one to be bitter from the baking powder I actually cut it in half the second time through.

The lady who posted this recipe on Connect had a much prettier finished product which she no doubt baked.  

So, here we go again.  TAKE 3:

This was about the only small baking dish I had on hand.  

When I baked it this time I went ahead and followed the instructions using 1 full tsp of baking powder.

Overall this turned out much better baked.  It held it's shape quite nicely but I still noted a bitter taste from the baking powder.

Since I don't normally bake I was unsure of how it would turn out in the oven without the full amount of baking powder.  

After doing a little bit of reading on baking powder I've decided to buy an aluminum free baking powder as I've read it has a less bitter taste.  

Clearly, this is something that I will need to read up on.  I think I'm headed for lots of study and experimentation.  

She posted this as being 3 points.  

Good or bad I'm always happy I tried something new.  

Perhaps through enough kitchen misadventures I'll learn how to bake and be able to come up with more good mug and other single serving cakes.  

It's not really cooking if you don't, on occasion, make a mess and a few mistakes.

That's how we learn.  

I guess I should be very leaned by now.  ;)

Happy Cooking!