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Healthy Summer Desserts
By Christina | May 20, 2008
If you have been reading my blogs you know I LOVE desserts. It is this love of desserts that keeps me ever seeking the perfectly delicious healthy treats. Here are two recipes for your sweet tooth. The first is short and easy and the second a bit more complex but both are “yummy”!
Healthy and Light: Yogurt and Fruit Dessert Cup
1 single-serve cup fruit flavored custard style low fat yogurt
1/4 cup granola or Grape Nuts
1 cup cut fruit from in store service deli
Okay, get ready, this is tricky…
Layer custard style fruit yogurt with granola and chunks of cut fruit. The already cut and packaged fruit costs more than the whole thing in its original state, but when your cooking for one, whole pineapples and melons can be daunting. Here, it’s worth the extra cost to treat your body to some fresh fruit.
Warm Strawberry Salad with Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
This is a two part process:
Frozen Yogurt:
2 cups plain yogurt
1 1/4 cups simple syrup (see Cook’s Note)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean, split
Strawberry salad:
1 cup raspberries
1 tablespoon sugar
16 large strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced
1 (2-inch) piece honeycomb, optional
Equipment: 1-quart paper milk container, thoroughly cleaned with the top cut off; 4 (6-inch) ovenproof, shallow appetizer plates
Make the Frozen Yogurt: In a bowl, whisk together the yogurt, simple syrup, and vanilla. Chill 30 minutes; then freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Cram the frozen yogurt into the milk container, packing it well to get rid of all the air pockets. Freeze for at least 6 hours.
Make the Strawberry Salad: puree the raspberries and sugar in a blender. Strain out the seeds and taste the puree for sweetness, adding more sugar if necessary. Divide the puree on among the plates, spreading evenly to coat the bottom of each plate. Using 4 berries per plate, carefully fan them on top of each plate, starting at the edge and spiraling in to the center. (It can be made up to this point up to 8 hours in advance. Just tightly cover each plate with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve.)
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Bake the strawberries until just warm, about 2 minutes. Alternatively, microwave them for 1 minute.
Take the frozen yogurt out of the freezer and lay it on its side. With a serrated knife, leaving the frozen yogurt in its container, cut a 1 1/2-inch think slice off the end. Remove the container band around the slice. Cut the slice on the diagonal into 4 triangles. Place a triangle of frozen yogurt in the center of each plate (it will start to melt immediately). Cut the honeycomb, if using, into 4 pieces and place on top of the frozen yogurt. Serve immediately.
Cook’s Note: If you have simple syrup on hand, this is such a fast dessert. To make the simple syrup, bring 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar to a boil; then let it cool before using.
Topics: General, Healthy Recipes |
