Archive for category Desserts
Sugar Cookies
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on January 10th, 2010
Ok. . .I am going to preface this by saying these were one of the most difficult baked good items that I have had to make. With other cookies you simply put a ’rounded teaspoonful’ of batter on a baking sheet and could care less about what they look like afterwards. Sugar cookies are made to be ‘pretty’. Well, these tasted wonderful (and are surprisingly low cal) but for a late, late night amongst doing other chores, it was unexpectedly a lot of work. This is not to deter any of you from attempting to make these but just learn my lessons before you do it! Make sure you have the time and the patience to devote to these.
What you will need:
1/4 c butter, softened
1/2 c sugar (or you can use a substitute)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c canola oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 c sifted cake flour
coarse sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, colored sugar, etc for toppings
1. Beat butter on high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, salt and beat until well combined. Add oil, egg, and vanilla – combine. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Divide dough in half, cover, and chill for 1-2 hrs or until easy to handle. (My dough was still crumbly and not easy to handle but the rolling pin helped)
2. Preheat oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface roll out dough (one half at a time) to 1/8 in thickness and use our cookie cutter(s). Reroll scraps as necessary and place cookies on baking sheet. If desired, decorate (and this was the time-consuming part). Bake for 6-8 mins or until edges are firm and just starting to brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes approx. 48 cookies.
I’m going to have to work on my cooking decorating skills but regardless they tasted delicious! Once these were done I swear I didn’t want anyone to touch them besides me after all that work. . .
Nutritional Information (per avg cookie size – about 2-2.5 in AND sans decorative sweets):
Calories: 54
Total Fat: 2 g
Cholesterol: 7 mg
Protein: 1 g
Carbohydrate: 8 g
Fiber: 0 g
Sodium: 26 mg
Chocolate Coconut Macaroons
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on January 3rd, 2010
Can we tell I love a coconut, nut, and chocolate combination? This surprisingly low-cal recipe is excellent. I anticipated them looking differently (like store bought macaroons) but the texture and taste is amazing. When you bite into them they feel soft and as light as air but then end with a nice crunch from the almonds and coconut. Just awesome. I served these as one of the dessert options at a dinner party.
3/4 c slivered almonds, dry-roasted and finely chopped
2/3 c sweetened flaked coconut
1/3 c all-purpose flour
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
whites of 4 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp imitation coconut flavoring
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 c sugar
1. Preheat oven to 325 and prep your baking sheets or you can use parchment paper (I did the latter for these).
2. In a small bowl, stir together almonds, coconut, flour, and cocoa
3. In a large metal/glass bowl combine remaining ingredients except sugar and beat on high until foamy. Gradually beat in sugar. Continue beating for 2-3 mins or until the egg whites are glossy and stiff peaks forms and remain standing.
4. Gently fold the almond mixture into the egg whites and drop by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 in apart on baking sheets. Bake one sheet at a time for 12-14 mins or until tops are dry. Cool on wire racks. For a light dessert serve with strawberries and light whipped cream. I yielded 36 macaroons.
***I still have a feeling that they shouldn’t be as flat but the taste did NOT disappoint.
Nutritional Information (per serving=2 cookies each):
Calories: 97
Total Fat: 3.5 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 20 mg
Carbohydrate: 16 g
Fiber: 1 g
Protein: 2 g
German Sweet Chocolate Cupcakes
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Snacks on January 2nd, 2010
This is one of the most decadent desserts I have made – per my friends’ request (they are so lucky!). I took a cake recipe and decided to do cupcakes instead. . .presentation could have been better but I kid you not these taste incredible!
It was strongly suggested to make the frosting first as it takes time to reach the right consistency:
12 0z evaporated milk
1.5 c sugar
3/4 c butter
4 egg yolks
1-8 oz flaked coconut
1.5 c chopped pecans (I smashed them up more for a finer and more even consistency)
Combine first four ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat for about 12 min or until thick (soft rolling boil is good). Remove from heat and then stir in coconut and pecans. Keep stirring until consistency is thick enough for frosting – when you remove your spoon from the mixture it should stick. This may take a while. . .
For cake:
4-1 oz squares German Sweet Chocolate (Baker’s)
1/2 c water
2 cups all purpose flour (you can use cake flour if you decide to make an actual cake)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c butter softened
2 c sugar
4 egg yolks and whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c buttermilk
1. Preheat oven to 350 and prep your pan/cupcake pan (liners)
2. Microwave chocolate and water about 1-2 minutes, stirring halfway.
3. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda
4. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add one yolk at a time and beat. Stir in chocolate and vanilla. Add flour/buttermilk alternately.
5. In separate bowl beat egg whites on high until soft peaks form and fold into batter.
6. Bake for approx 30 mins for cake and about 20-23 mins for cupcakes. I yielded 24 cupcakes, but I think I could have put a little less batter in each and made more. Note: I also used cake flour which may have affected how they came out. Tops were a bit flat so I’m not sure where I went wrong. So far I have rave reviews by the hubby!
UPDATE: The cupcakes have made it to their destination and from what I’m told I’m getting ribs in return. Not a bad exchange so they must be good – LOL!
***I am definitely going to attempt making this again and hopefully they will come out looking a bit better. I think once you taste the frosting it won’t matter what the rest looks like. I swear, the BEST frosting ever.
I have no clue what the nutritional information is for each cupcake. Why bother?
Pumpkin-Chocolate Pie
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Low Calorie on December 28th, 2009
Here’s my spin on a winter-time classic – add chocolate of course!
What you require:
For crust:
1 1/3 c all purpose flour and 1/4 tsp salt; add 1/4 c cooking oil and 1/4 c fat free milk; stir lightly with a fork until combined and use your hands to work dough into a ball. On a well floured surface, use your hands to flatten pastry dough and roll center to edge into a circle about 12 in in dm. Transfer to 9 in pie plate. Trim pastry to 1/2 in beyond edge of pie plate and flute or crimp edge as desired. Do not prick.
For filling:
1 -12.3 oz package light firm silken-styletofu
1-15 oz can pumpkin
2/3 c sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
approx 4 oz of semi-sweet chocolate pieces (I used none other than Ghirardelli) [you can increase the amount depending on how much chocolate you want but know this will displace the pumpkin filling]
1. Heat chocolate pieces over medium heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Pour evenly on bottom of pie plate and spread until all sides are met.
2. Blend tofu in a blender. Add rest of ingredients and blend until well combined. Pour mixture on top of chocolate and make sure top is even and meets all sides.
3. Bake for 25 mins (you can cover the crust edge with foil if desired to prevent overbrowning – mine did not burn) and then for an additional 30 minutes more (remove foil before this if you used it). Cool on a wire rack and then cover and refrigerate within 2 hours until set.
4. Serve with light whipped topping (or one of your choosing) and enjoy – makes 10 servings!
You may not be able to tell here but there is a fabulous layer of chocolate on the bottom - delish!
Nutritional Information (per serving AND this is without the chocolate layer):
Calories: 190
Total Fat: 6 g
Cholesterol: 0
Protein: 3 g
Carbohydrate: 31 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 151 mg
Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Snacks on December 22nd, 2009
I know everyone has their version of chocolate chip/chunk cookies. This recipe contains oats and oatmeal chocolate chip is one of my favorite types of cookies. So here you go. . .
You will need:
1 1/4 c rolled oats
1 c all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 oz soft silken-style tofu
2 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 oz dark chocolate chunk piece or bittersweet chocolate pieces (Ghirardelli)
1. Preheat oven to 375. Place oats in a food processor or blender and blend until oats resemble a coarse flour. In medium bowl stir together oats, flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside. Blend tofu in food processor or blender until smooth and set aside.
2. In a large bowl beat butter with electric mixer and add tofu. Combine well with mixer. Add granulated and brown sugars and combine well. Then beat in oil and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as possible and stir in chocolate.
3. Place rounded teaspoons of dough on ungreased baking sheet and bake for approx. 8 mins or until edges are golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes 24 cookies.
Nutritional Information (per cookie):
Calories: 125
Total Fat: 5 g
Cholesterol: 3 mg
Protein: 1 g
Carbohydrate: 18 g
Fiber 1 g
Sodium: 40 mg
Chocolate-Drizzled Graham Cookies
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on December 16th, 2009
So since the lemon bars were getting scarce I needed to replenish the ’sweet supply’ at home so I decided to try this out. With Ghirardelli chocolate how can you possibly go wrong?
You will need:
1/2 c butter, softened
1/4 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinammon
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1.5 c all purpose flour
1 c white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
1/2 c miniature semisweet chocolate pieces (Ghirardelli)
3 oz bittersweet chocolate or 1/2 c miniature semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 tsp shortening
1. Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Beat until light and fluffy, scraping side of the bowl occasionally.
2. Beat in eggs, honey, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the all purpose flour and wheat flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in 1/2 c chocolate pieces.
3. Shape dough into 1-in balls and place on prepped baking sheet about 1 in apart. flatten slightly. Bake for 8-9 mins or until bottoms are lightly browned. Transfer to wire rack and cool.
4. In a small saucepan combine bittersweet chocolate/pieces and shortening and heat over low heat until melted and smooth, stirring often. Cool slightly and transfer to a small resealable plastic bag. Snip a small hole in one corner of the bag and seal. Pipe chocolate on tops of cookies. Let stand about 30 mins or until set (if you can wait!). Makes 48 cookies.
You get the idea. . .
Lemon Bars
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on December 14th, 2009
I am usually a sucker for rich chocolate desserts, but I do love a lemony good ending. This turned out way better than any store-bought brands I’ve tried! (And you’d never guess it’s low-cal too.)
Ingredient List:
3/4 c all-purpose flour; 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 c granulated sugar; 3/4 c granulated sugar
dash salt
1/4 c butter
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
1/3 c lemon juice (I used fresh lemons)
1/3 c fat free half and half
powdered sugar (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 350 and prep an 8×8x2 in baking pan. In a small bowl combine 3/4 c flour, 1/4 c sugar, and salt. Using a pastry blender cut in butter until crumbly. Using the back of a large spoon, tightly press and pack this mixture into the baking pan. Bake for 15 mins.
2. While that is baking, stir together eggs, 3/4 c sugar, and 2 tbsp flour. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice, and half and half. Once the crust is done then pour this mixture over the crust and then bake for 25 mins. Cool in pan on a wire rack.
3. If desired, sift powdered sugar over cooled dessert. This is tart and sweet so lemon bars will be small but satisfying! Makes 16 bars.
Nutritional Information:
Calories: 113 (Sweet!)
Total Fat: 4 g
Cholesterol: 34 mg
Protein: 1 g
Carbohydrate: 19 g
Fiber: 0 g
Sodium: 44 mg
Pear-Almond Muffins with Ginger-Cream Spread
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Breakfast, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on December 12th, 2009
The desire to make these turned into an unexpected late night mission and I have to say I am VERY glad I did it! I thought the combination of these flavors sounded interesting and I’ve never had a ‘pear muffin’ before. So, let’s get to the how-to, shall we?
You will require:
1 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c packed brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c whole bran cereal
3/4 c fat-free milk
3/4 c chopped, peeled pear (I used bosc)
2 egg whites, slightly beaten
3 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp finely chopped almonds
1. Preheat oven to 400 and prep your 12-2.5 in muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. In a large bowl stir together your flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, and salt. Make a well in the center of the mixture.
2. In a medium bowl stir together cereal and milk and let this stand for 5 min. Stir in egg whites, oil, and pear. Add this mixture then to your flour mixture and combine until moistened (batter should be lumpy).
3. Spoon batter into muffin cups – about 3/4 full. Sprinkle with almonds and bake for 15-18 mins or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.
4. While the muffins are baking here is how to make the ginger-cream spread: in a small bowl combine 4 oz of light cream cheese with a 1/4 tsp of ground ginger OR 2 tsps finely crushed crystallized ginger and 2 add tsp of honey.
5. Cool muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 mins. Serve with the ginger-cream spread. Makes 12 servings. You WILL enjoy!
***Side note: you can also make the batter ahead of time and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and just bake a few at a time.
Nutritional Information:
Calories: 154
Total fat: 5 g
Cholesterol: 5 mg
Protein: 4 g
Carbohydrate: 24 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 163 mg
Mocha Scones
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Baking, Breakfast, Desserts, Low Calorie, Snacks on December 8th, 2009
Anyone who knows me knows I love chocolate, especially if it’s combined with coffee or coffee flavoring. This is perfect for breakfast or a snack! I love this recipe so much I have made a couple batches in the last week.
What you will need:
1.5 c all purpose flour
1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c sugar
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp instant coffee crystals
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 butter, cut into pieces
1 6-0z carton plain fat free yogurt or low-fat yogurt
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1/3 c semisweet chocolate pieces (I used Ghirardelli)
1. Preheat oven to 400 and lightly grease a large baking sheet. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl combine flour, rolled oats, sugar, cocoa powder, coffee crystals, baking powder, and salt. Using a pastry blender (I didn’t need to but it would be faster and less taxing) cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.
2. In a medium bowl combine yogurt and egg white. Stir in chocolate pieces. Add this mixture to the flour mixture and stir until moistened.
3. Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead by folding and gently pressing dough until nearly smooth. Pat into an 8×6 in rectangle. Cut rectangle crosswise into 4 strips. Cut each strip into 3 rectangles to make 12 pieces.
4. Place dough about 1 in apart on baking sheet and bake for 13-15 mins or until tops are set. Remove from baking sheet and allow to cool for at least 5 mins (or if you’re like me the hotter the better!). Makes 12 scones.
Nutritional information (per scone):
Calories: 185
Total Fat: 6 g
Cholesterol: 10 mg
Protein: 4 g
Carbohydrate: 30 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 153 mg
Thanksgiving cupcakes
Posted by Van Santos in Desserts on November 30th, 2009
In addition to Turkey Tom 2009, the wife also made some festive Thanksgiving Cupcakes.
Here’s how you do it:
- Bake & frost chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Sure, you can do the cupcakes by scratch; however, we opted for a good old box mix.
- The Wings, face, and tail-feathers are broken and shaped Salerno butter cookies
- The Eyes are dots of black icing
- The Snood is a drip of red icing
The kids love them and VERY easy to do.
Apples and cranberries cooked in brandy
Posted by monicajane in Desserts on November 18th, 2009
I’m into natural desserts which are generally fruity in nature, though I’m experimenting with raw unsweetened chocolate lately. Perhaps I’ll have a recipe of such soon.
This dessert came about by accident. I actually bought the cranberries to go in a squash and apple roast inspired by Joanne, but then I needed a less intensive thing to do and I really wanted dessert, so this is what happened to the cranberries instead. Well some of them, I still have some left, so perhaps the roasted squash will still come to be.
I cut 3 apples up in bite size pieces, leaving the skin on. I like skin, if you don’t go ahead and peel them.
Then I threw in a few handfuls of cranberries. I didn’t measure. Think about how tart you want your dessert, or alternately how much sugar you want to add or not. I didn’t want to add much sugar and I like things tart so I put what I figured would work out given my desire for sweetness.
I had a juicing orange hanging around from the last batch of pumpkin soup I made so I peeled and cut that up also in bite size pieces.
I tossed this all up in a pot and poured 1/2 a cup of brandy over the top, followed by 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg.
Brought it to a boil, then turned it down to a simmer, covered it and let it cook until all the fruit was soft.
I drizzled just a small bit of honey on mine (about a teaspoon) and ate it with chopped walnuts on top. My husband didn’t add sugar but ate his with ice cream. The following day I topped in with plain yogurt after drizzling a bit of honey on it.
It had a delightfully strong brandy flavor even though it was all cooked out.
Red wine poached apples
Posted by monicajane in Desserts on October 24th, 2009
Last night I was in one of my relatively rare moods for dessert. We never have much in the house for dessert so when one of these cravings strikes I need to be rather creative. What I made was a brandied poached apple. I didn’t photograph it, but it was so good I wanted to do something like it again tonight for the blog.
I figured I’d use red wine the second time around. As you can imagine the aesthetics are much nicer. I do think I liked the flavor with the brandy poached apples better, but heck, you can’t beat this beautiful red color. It makes for a very nice thing to serve guests, I think. And though the brandy perhaps does win in flavor it’s not by all that much. These were darn good too.
So, this is so easy.
2 apples cored and cut in half (I left peels on as I like them and they are good for us, but do as you prefer)
3/4 cup red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp honey
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
Put the apples face down in the wine and spices in as small a pot as will take all the apples. The deeper the wine the better. If you don’t have a snug pot increase the amount of wine just a bit. You can adjust all the flavors to your liking, as well. Most people would probably want to add more honey.
So bring it all to a boil and then put it on low until the apples are soft. Let cool for a bit and then serve with chopped walnuts sprinkled on top.
Chocolate mousse with a twist
Posted by monicajane in Desserts on September 20th, 2009
This was a total spur of the moment experiment. I generally don’t eat sugar and generally this includes natural forms of sugar such as honey, agave nectar, maple syrup etc.
Every now and then though I get a bit of a bug to have something sweet. Today I got that bug and wondered what I could make. I have raw cocoa powder on hand and thought I might do something with that. I surfed around the web a bit and came up with the below recipe that is a mish-mosh of several different recipes as I did not have all the ingredients for any of the recipes I found online.
I have never been a desert maker and so this was me in the land of big question marks.
Blend in the blender:
14 oz can coconut milk
3/4 cup raw cocoa powder
1/2 cup raw honey
1/4 cup raw almond butter
Refrigerate until nicely chilled.
Then mix 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the above cold mixture.
This was a goopy but very airy mixture so I chose to freeze it to make it more solid.
Freeze until firm. Yummy delight. My husband likes it much more than I do and he will be eating the bulk of it, which is fine with me. My sweet tooth generally lasts about 2 or 3 bites.
Lite on the sugar homemade banana ice cream
Posted by monicajane in Desserts, Food on August 27th, 2009
I quit eating sugar for the most part about 3 years ago when I discovered I’m hypo-glycemic. It’s not been terribly difficult as I have never had much of a sweet tooth. On the rare occasions I feel like sugar I tend to indulge as my appetite for it is quickly relieved.
About two weeks ago I had a thought that I have from time to time. “I want ice-cream!” I don’t have this thought very often but when I do it’s really the only time I miss desert or sugar.
I thought though, “I really don’t like sugar that much, I like the creaminess of the ice cream.” So the idea to buy an ice cream maker was born. I went straight to Amazon and bought a nice little 2 pint Cuisanart ice cream maker. And the fruits of that labor just got put into the freezer right before I thought of writing this post. I haven’t had ice cream in several years either. I tasted it and it’s pretty scrumptious.
I thought a lot about how to make a delicious, healthy, (except for the fat, but when you use organic, grass fed cream, well the fat becomes much less of an issue!!) ah…back to the topic at hand….delicious, healthy, essentially sugar free ice cream. My final recipe:
1 very ripe banana
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/2 pint low fat milk
1 egg and 2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
2 tsp Stevia (a natural sugar-free herb that tastes sweet)
1 tbsp Agave Nectar (the same plant that produces tequila, produces this low glycemic natural sugar which actually has some additional nutritional value unlike processed sugar)
All of the ingredients are cooked into a very light custard by cooking very slowly over low heat until thickened and then refrigerated overnight and then put into the pre-frozen ice cream maker the next day.
The recipe that I used as inspiration called for a cup of sugar which I was avoiding.
3/4 cup of agave nectar is equivalent to a cup of sugar and 1/4 tsp of Stevia is equivalent to 1 tsp sugar. So do the math. This is very lightly sweetened. Of course the very ripe banana helps with the sweetening too. In any case it’s awesomely delicious and very low in sugar!!!
The Chocolate Chip Scone Experiment
Posted by Van Santos in Baking, Desserts on August 25th, 2009
Feeling a bit experimental, I wanted to try making scones. My baking experience is limited to the wonderful white cake I made for easter (and yes, it was wonderful). So, I turned to my personal search assistant – Google – for a Chocolate Chip Scone recipe. Enter this bit from The Joy of Baking.
Not trying to be negative here but the experience well less than joyful.
The Prep
Following ever step listed in the recipe I thought things were going well until I look down at my dough and realize I have a overly wet, overly sticky ball of what should be scone dough. It was almost as if there was too much milk and not enough flour.
My initial reaction was to add more flour but I resisted, thinking to myself “Ok, just follow the recipe”. I ball up, knead the dough twice, and cut the product into triangles and get ready for some baking.
15 to 20 minutes later the scones are done.
The Scones
ACK.
During the prep the dough appeared to be too moist; however, the actual scones tasted as if there was too much flour added – they tasted doughy. I thought, maybe, this was due to the fact that I was tasting the scones shortly after they came out of the oven so I decided to wait until the next morning and give them another try.
Yea, the ACK principle still applied for me.
I’m not sure what the issue was with this experiment. Was it the recipe? Was it the prep? Was it some unknown variable?
While I’m disappointed with the outcome I will be giving it another try in the near future. Oh, and yes, I did have pictures of the scones (they looked good, trust me) but I have misplaced my camera. Maybe someone with some more experince can suggest some tips for future scone experiments.
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