Pour some sugar on me
I have always had a sweet tooth. Growing up my mother baked every day of the week (I'm not exaggerating). My brother and I grew up having sweet treats in our lunch boxes, for afternoon tea and for dessert. On any given day it would not be unusual for me to have a chocolate muffin for breakfast, a piece of cake in my lunch box, six or seven chocolate chip cookies for afternoon tea and chocolate pudding for dessert. My brother drank six cups of tea a day with two sugars in each cup as well. I watched my mother bake and learned from her. All my friends envied the composition of my lunch box. From a young age my mother shoed us she was thinking about us or that she cared by baking for us. There is a photo of me on my second birthday, surrounded by my teddies with a huge cake in the shape of a bee hive and a table full of sweets that my mother had baked. I had grow up expecting something sweet after my meals. I still have an obsession now with dessert, after several years of not having dessert every night it is still a struggle to not induldge.
When I first moved in with Karl's family, who don't have sweets often, I began baking brownies, pecan pies and lemon meringue pies just so we would have dessert. I have always known that it is from my mother that I get this craving and love of baking and all things sweet. She and I both struggle to go past a bakery. My father, and both his parents, on the other hand cannot have sweets because they get migraines. My older sister doesn't like sweets too much and neither does my little brother. I have received this passion for all things pastry from my mother, who received it from her grandmother who was well known in the neighbourhood for being a master baker who always had a treat to offer a passer-by.
Now, this love of sweets did not go unnoticed by my blossoming body and at my worst point I weighed 103 Kgs. After a doctor threatened that I would have a stroke, due to my weight and family history, I was put on medication to bring my blood pressure down and I cut out all fat and sugar for six months. In that time I lost 30 Kgs but it was always depressing to know there was going to be no more desserts. No more of my mother's chocolate pudding or infamous rum balls. No more of the things I had been raised to appreciate. If you cook for someone, you love them. The motto of my family and Sicilians everywhere.
What this all leads up to is this. I have been living a healthy lifestyle (minus a few vodkas here and there which I drink with Pepsi max) jogging/walking 5km a day, and eating a low fat and low carb diet for three to four years now and in that time I have seen no advancement in the technology that would allow me to have a piece of cake without having to run to Cairns and back. Really, there are no recipes out there for a low fat/low sugar/low carb muffin/cookie/cake. It always ends up being very high carb, no fat or very high fat and low carb. Isn't there anything that is just right? Flour has almost 80g of carbs in a cup, the low carb option is almond flour which has 20g of fat in a cup and don't even get me started on the wonderful flax seed. I need to search the world for a low carb option that can be put in cakes. I mean, I know how to make a low fat, low SUGAR muffin you just use splenda or equal and don't add butter. But I come unstuck when it comes to what to use as a flour/carb substitute.
Gargh, with all the diet revolutions over the years you would think someone would have come up with an alternative so that health conscious people can have a fuckin' nice piece of cake.