Healthy Holiday Desserts
The holidays aren’t really the holidays without scrumptious desserts, luscious cookies and mouthwatering cakes and pies. You can have your cake and eat it too with these waist watcher desserts.
Fresh Fruit Wreaths
Low in calories and full of fiber and vitamins, fresh fruit is perfect for dessert. Up the presentation by arranging the fruit in a wreath shape alternating red, white and green fruits. You could offer individual wreaths or make one large wreath and let your guests choose the fruits they want. Lace the fruits on a layer of greens such as kale or butter lettuce.
Red fruits include strawberries, raspberries, cherries, watermelon, grapes and of course apples. Green fruits include grapes, pears, apples and kiwis. White fruits include banana, peeled pears and apples. Dip the peeled fruits in a base of half water and half lemon juice to prevent browning.
Serve the fruit wreaths with a variety of toppings such as crushed nuts, cocoa powder, cinnamon nonfat yogurt, and for those guests not on a weight loss program – whipped cream.
You could also arrange the fruits in a tree shape using more green fruits, then decorate the tree with the red and white fruits.
Parfaits
When you think parfait you probably think of a rich layered dessert crammed full of calories. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Serve individual parfaits in shot glasses nestled in a bed of ice.
Mix non-fat unsweetened yogurt with vanilla. The vanilla adds to the flavor but not to the calorie count. Layer a tablespoon of yogurt in the shot glass, then a layer of crushed fruit such as unsweetened raspberries another layer of yogurt and a layer of crushed kiwi fruit. Top with yogurt and garnish with a quarter slice of kiwi perched on the rim of the glass. Of course you can use any fruit you like but the kiwi, and raspberries are holiday colors.
Keto Cookies
The keto diet severely limits carbs and that means no sugar and very little fruit. So how can you offer cookies? Simple use egg white based meringue cookies. Make sure your bowls and beaters are completely fat free, even a speck of grease or oil prevents the egg whites from fluffing up. Start with six egg whites. Add one teaspoon of vanilla, peppermint or lemon extract to the egg whites for flavor. Add a few drops of red food coloring to peppermint cookies and yellow to the lemon cookies. Add a ¼ teaspoon of cream of tartar and the no calorie sweetener equivalent of six tablespoons of sugar. Beat the mixture to stiff peaks. A stiff peak is when you lift the batter from the egg mixture it stays in a peaked shape.
If you want chocolate meringue cookies add two tablespoons for unsweetened cocoa powder as you beat the egg whites.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated 250 degree oven for one hour. Turn off the oven and let the cookies rest in the oven for two hours.
Guest author Dee Power loves to eat food, cook food, and write about food. Find out more about her at Dee’s Delicious Dinners.
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