Cake made from pasta!

[Yoyo dieter]

Saw this recipe on This Morning. It's a cake made from pasta and could be easily tweaked to be incredibly low syn on a green day. Might give it a go:
Sweet pasta cake with Amaretto liquor | Gino D'Acampo | Food | ITV This Morning
If you've tried it let me know how it goes. I'm curious.

 

[Minimunchkins]

Pretty sure you'd have to syn the pasta on all plans as it's being used in a snack-type recipe. The apples would also have to be syn'd as they're grated & cooked.
I think it'd only really be the sugar > splenda & perhaps Amaretto > an essence that you'd be able to save syns.

250g vermicelli or thin noodle pasta
Olive oil for greasing
4 tbsp of Amaretto liquor
150g raisins
4 eggs
130g caster sugar
80g almonds, chopped
Zest of 1 orange
4 granny smith apples
Juice of ½ lemon
4 tbsp of Demerara sugar
Salt

 

[sugar n spice]

i thought pasta was free ?!

 

[Circes]

It is unless you are using it as a substitute for flour to make a snack food. Then it becomes easy to eat too much and that can affect your losses so SW recommend you syn it instead.

 

[sugar n spice]

ok thank u does tht apply if just havin pasta on own or pasta with sauce as snack thru day (or just if sub flour)

 

[Circes]

Which plan are you following? Personally I wouldn't call pasta or pasta and sauce a snack food. They are free foods but they still have calories in them and, in my opinion, too many for a snack food.

 

[BeckyBunny]

Pasta in it's whole form is free on green and extra easy. I think u only have to sin it if you're grinding it up to use like flour whereas your recipe uses it whole. Slimming world has some famous recipes for quiche using whole bits of cooked pasta in it baked which isn't sinned so I don't see why you should sin yours. It's still whole and bulky so you wouldn't eat any more of it than normal which is what would happen if you ground it for flour x

 

[Lexie_dog]

250g vermicelli or thin noodle pasta - potentially synned
Olive oil for greasing - synned
4 tbsp of Amaretto liquor - synned
150g raisins - synned (I think?)
4 eggs - free
130g caster sugar - synned
80g almonds, chopped - synned
Zest of 1 orange - free
4 granny smith apples - synned
Juice of ½ lemon - free
4 tbsp of Demerara sugar - synned
Salt - free

Time you syn it it hardly seems worth the hassle. Just make a normal cake and syn it!

Brit mum makes a cake which is an actual cake for 2.5 syns a slice. Orange and Almond Cake | Slimming Eats - Slimming World Recipes

Or this one Raspberry and Lemon Sponge Cake | Slimming Eats - Slimming World Recipes

Now as for the pasta being synned, I'm not sure how I feel about this. Yes pasta is free, theoretically I *should* be able to eat it til its coming out my ears, and I know SW doesn't look at calories, but it is basically a calorie conrolled diet just not overtly.

Pasta contains roughly 350 cals per 100 g, meaning this cake contains 875 calories from pasta alone.

Okay 875 calories might not affect your weight loss but I don't think it's really 'on plan' unless it's synned. bearing in mind its not just pasta calories in this.

The savoury quiche with pasta is free, you're right but really who eats a whole quiche on their own? Which cake is certainly more tempting to do. The savoury quiche will also be lower in syns than the cake with amaretto, nuts etc.

The cous cous cake is officially synned from SW, and the cous cous is left whole in that as its defined as being 'treated like flour'. Reason being it's sweet. I couldnt eat a mug of dry cous cous, made up as a savoury dish, but slap some sweetener and muller on it and I'd be right in there. It's easier for us as people to overeat on sugary and fatty foods because of the areas in the brain they trigger.

Personally I wouldn't treat this as a free food for those reasons. There's tweaks, there's bends to to the plan then there's full out kicking the bum out of it. But then it's YOUR plan, so you could always try it and see how you go.

 

[Circes]

Pasta in it's whole form is free on green and extra easy. I think u only have to sin it if you're grinding it up to use like flour whereas your recipe uses it whole. Slimming world has some famous recipes for quiche using whole bits of cooked pasta in it baked which isn't sinned so I don't see why you should sin yours. It's still whole and bulky so you wouldn't eat any more of it than normal which is what would happen if you ground it for flour x

Sorry but the quiche made from pasta and sauce is now also synned if not taken as part of a main meal - for exactly the same reason. And the synning applies even if the ingredient is not being ground.

 

[kiz8888]

Sorry but the quiche made from pasta and sauce is now also synned if not taken as part of a main meal - for exactly the same reason. And the synning applies even if the ingredient is not being ground.

Since when has the pasta n sauce quiche to be synned? I was at my class on wednesday and my consultant was talking about making the quiche as a snack and she didn't mention synning it. I would have this as a snack, as I would have pasta n sauce as a snack too. I thought that was part of the beauty of SW?

 

[Circes]

Ooh, a long time now. Pasta in sauce is relatively high in calories and personally I wouldn't consider that as a snack because it's easy to really bump up your calorie intake without realising. A lot of people were taking advantage of the quiche and eating a whole one as snack and you can see how that could affect losses because you are essentially eating a Pasta and sauce, an omelette and a tub of cottage cheese all for a snack.

 

[kiz8888]

I'll have to bring this up with my consultant on wednesday I think as if that's true then she's giving out misleading information. Thanks.

 

[Circes]

I did some digging and found the email from SW HQ about it

MiniMins.com - Weight Loss Support Forum - View Single Post - Cous cous for cakes (wot my consultant said)

 

[Yoyo dieter]

ok thank u does tht apply if just havin pasta on own or pasta with sauce as snack thru day (or just if sub flour)

I assumed it's only syned if you grind it or use it as flour.

 

[Yoyo dieter]

It's quite confusing, this one. I know the principle is that the ingredient needs to be used in its intended form, but as this is a traditional Italian recipe rather than a healthy alternative, I would have thought it would be ok. I know there are lots of traditional Indian puddings that use vermicelli too.

 

[Circes]

I don't think that will make any difference sorry - it's still a cake and the propensity to overconsume is there.

 

[BeckyBunny]

I don't see the difference in putting pasta in a cake and putting rice in milk to make rice pudding. And there's loads of syn free rice pudding recipes on here. You're not grinding it up or breaking it down. You're just making it sweet instead of savoury. Perhaps the issue is extra easy? I know that on extra easy there is a focus on eating smaller portions etc. Where as on green and red we have always been told to eat as big a portions as we like as long as we stay on plan. I did slimming world before and ate all sorts of things as snacks like whole packets of crab sticks on red days and whole packet pasta quiches on green days and I still lost 5 stone in 7 months.

 

[Circes]

The difference is you have your rice pudding as a meal or as part of a meal, along with superfree foods to limit your intake, so the risk of overconsuming is much less.

The cake made from pasta is, as mentioned upthread, 875 calories just from the pasta alone and it would be easy to consume a lot of calories just for snacks without even realising it.

Did you read the link to the SW HQ message earlier? That explains it well.

 

[elleandca]

just read through all of this now feel confused :sigh:

i can see how a bulky made cake eaten as a snack or anything else bulky eaten as a "snack" is bad but made as part of a meal is still fine ie quiche with salad or sw chips?

or all the sw cook books need to be recalled

 

[BritMumInCanada]

It is all to do with how restrained you can be really and lets face it most of us aren't because otherwise we wouldn't all be here trying to lose weight.

Slimming World works on a free food list basis and food optimising, but at the end of the day to lose weight you have to eat less calories than your body burns and although slimming world is not about counting calories if you eat more than your body physically needs then you wont lose weight.

Extra Easy works by combining very low fat/low caloried superfree foods (a 1/3 of your plate) with free foods, what this does is automatically balances out your plate. A plate full of just your protein and carb free foods with no superfree could end up with you overconsuming too much of the higher caloried free foods and therefore you might not lose weight. (for instance and plate piled with just slimming world chips and chicken and no superfree) Adding a 1/3 superfree is Slimming Worlds clever way of limiting your intake of food without the need for weighing or calorie counting, because if your plate has a 1/3 superfree, then you have less space on your plate to pile it high with slimming world chips and chicken. Green and Red work in a similar way, but because you are already limited (i.e. no red foods on a green day and no green foods on a red day) you dont need to be so strict with the superfree because your calorie intake will already be controlled.

Now lets imagine you have you filling meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner and then also start making these cakes etc to snack on inbetween, it won't be long before your calorie intake is bumped right up and you will be then eating more calories than your body burns. What do you think happens then? You won't lose weight - simple!!! Yes slimming world do say we can eat things from the free food list unlimited, but that means till satisfied, not till you can't move from your seat and have to unbutton your trousers to loosen them.

The trouble with making cakes out of free foods and making things like crisps where a potato is cooked till it is completely dried and therefore loses all it's water and density and therefore not as filling as say a jacket potato, we all too often dont know when to stop, as they are easier to over consume. If you are restrained and can limit yourself to one slice or one small portion then it might not have any effect on your weight loss, but if you start eating full cakes a day or several potatoes made into crisps, you can see where the problem lies. That is a huge amount of extra calories you are consuming.

Slimming World therefore advise that these type of things are synned and this is to protect all of our losses. Slimming World hoped that we would be satisified enough at meal times by food optimising with free foods and superfree foods, they didnt imagine that members would start being so creative and try to replace things that got us overweight in the first place. This is the area that you have to be careful on.

Some cakes/desserts are okay, because you are already limited with how much you can have, for instance rice pudding is usually made with milk, milk is not free, so therefore you either have to syn it or HEX it. Scan bran or weetabix cakes are the same, scan bran and weetabix is not free, again you either need to syn it or HEX it, so you are therefore limited to have much you can have.