Tag Archives: healthy dessert

Carrot Cake Bites

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I’ll be honest, I didn’t have a lot of faith in these. A majority of my desserts end up being failures for one reason or another but much to my surprise, these turned out great! Recipe adapted from The Purple Carrot.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup whole wheat bread flour (or your choice of flour)
  • 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1/2 cup finely shredded coconut
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds (or other nut)
  • 1 cup finely shredded carrots (I used Grimmway Farms)
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup agave nectar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • Optional: 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven at 375.

2. In large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and oats. Add carrots, almonds, raisins, coconut and cinnamon.

3. In separate bowl, mix together agave, vanilla, and applesauce (coconut oil if using). Add to flour mixture and stir until combined.

4. Drop onto parchment paper lined baking sheets, about 1 tablespoon in size. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden. (I made mine a bit bigger so I baked mine a little longer)

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Mini Lemon Pie’s

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A high school classmate of mine tried my mini key lime pies and said she wished there was a recipe for lemon pies. Well ask and you shall receive Kate! This recipe is a combination of a raw lemon bar recipe with the crust of the indoor s’mores that I made a few weeks ago. If you want to make it completely raw you can use the crust recipe I used in the mini key lime pies, I just love the combination of graham cracker and lemon.

Ingredients

Filling

  • 3 cups of raw cashews (soaked in water for several hours before)
  • 3/4 cup of fresh Lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup of Agave nectar
  • 3/4 cup of coconut oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • Optional: raspberries for garnish

Crust

  • 9 graham crackers
  • 1 cup of slow cooked oats
  • 6 Tbsp NuStevia (or regular sugar)
  • 4 Tbsp butter (you can also use applesauce)
  • 6 Tbsp plain Greek yogurt
  • 1/4 tsp of salt
  • 1 Tbsp of vanilla extract

Directions

Crust

1. Preheat your oven to 350º and grease a muffin pan.*

2. In a food processor mix together the graham crackers and oats until they are finely ground. Add in the rest of the ingredients and blend until a moist crumb forms. Stop once it starts to form a dough. Use a muffin pan and press the mixture into each cup just so it fills the bottom, you can make this as think or as thin as you like. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Filling

1. Add all of the ingredients in your food processor and mix adding the water slowly so it gets to the desired consistency (it should be creamy, not too runny). Pour mixture into muffin tins and freeze for a few hours or until firm.

** I would consider using aluminum muffin cups because getting them out of the muffin pan was not easy. I had to warm it in a bath of warm water in the sink and beat them out, then refreeze them so I could cut them to look nice.

(Don’t mind my horrendous manicure….)

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Strawberry Shortcake Muffins (and some healthy baking tips)

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Strawberries have been on sale at the grocery store a lot lately so I’ve been looking for recipes to use them for. I’m not a very good baker and I’m not really a muffin person but for some reason these strawberry shortcake muffins on Dashing Dish just spoke to me. The best part is it is super healthy!

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cup oats
  • 1 cup plain low fat greek yogurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup Stevia
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 cup strawberries, diced, and patted dry + (reserve handful to place on top of muffins)
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • Optional: ¼ teaspoon lemon zest

*Important: The paper liners don’t work well when baking with a base that does not include flour. If you don’t have a silicone muffin tin or liners, I recommend only using foil cupcake liners.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin tins with silicone or foil liners.

2. Place all of the ingredients (except the strawberries) in a blender or food processor, and blend until oats are smooth. Add strawberries and pulse a few times just to get some of the strawberry flavor into the mix but not so much so that all of the strawberries are chopped.

3. Divide batter among cupcake liners, add a few diced strawberries on top and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Yummy!

Make baking healthier

After many failed attempts at baking I pretty much gave up. Not only did my food always turn up somehow “off” I hated that every recipe called for a cup of sugar or oil – yuck! I found some really great healthy substitutes for common baking recipes in Oxygen Magazine that I have started using to healthify my recipes.

If a recipe calls for heavy cream, substitute it with evaporated skim milk.

If a recipe calls for 1 egg, substitute it with 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce.

If a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter, substitute it with 1 smashed ripe banana.

If a recipe calls for all-purpose flour, substitute it with whole wheat flour or 1/2 to 1/3 cup of protein powder for that fraction called for.

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