Airman and I are spending Thanksgiving with his family. At present, we’re not sure where we’re going, so I have to be prepared to bring a dessert. Unfortunately, dessert involves cramming every possible calorie into a bowl or pie plate, and, well, I thought it would be nice to bring a couple of desserts that are lower-fat and lower-sugar than the usual fare. I’ve lightened up the Libby’s recipe for pumpkin pie, so that’s taken care of. (It gets tested later, so I’ll report the results.) But I’d also like a lighter cake recipe. Do you think Splenda would work in an angel-food cake?
Any suggestions? Recipes you’ve made are especially welcome.
One box angel food cake mix.
One can pumpkin.
Mix and bake in a 9x13 pan. Top with fat-free Cool Whip and sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, and/or pumpkin pie spice. Yum!
There is a recipe on the box of Jello Fat Free Sugar Free Pistachio Pudding for Low Fat Watergate Salad. It’s really good! I did a test run of it last night to see if it was passable and other than not having the texture of the mini marshmallows that I remember from my youth, it’s all the same flavors.
1 box SF FF Jello brand Pistachio Pudding mix
1 8oz can crushed pineapple in juice - DO NOT DRAIN
1 cup low fat vanilla yogurt (I used 0% Plain Chobani with 4 packets of splenda and 4 pumps of sugar free vanilla syrup mixed in. Splash of vanilla extract would work too.)
1 8oz container Fat Free whipped topping
Mix together the pudding, yogurt, and pineapple with juice. Fold in the whipped topping and chill. Makes about 8 half cup servings. You can double the recipe easily. The recipe on the box says to keep 1/2 cup of the whipped topping out so serve on top, but I don’t find this necessary. One serving is 2 Weight Watchers Points Plus.
If you want a low sugar desert, I would not go all chemiwhipped with Splenda cake. As a low carb afficianado, that sounds dreadful. Low-carb people won’t eat it because it’s still white carbs and neither will anyone else because Splenda has a very bitter taste when cooked.
Bring some strawberries and fullfat whipped cream on the side. Those as do not want the whipped cream, can enjoy the strawberries. Generally speaking, very little desert-like can be both low carb AND low fat and still be semi-edible, other than whole fresh fruits. Low carb eaters do not avoid fats, they avoid “low fat” products as they are usually hopped up with sugars for texture. (Hockey Monkey’s recipe being a perfect example. Why even bother with packets of Splenda when you pour more than a cup of pineapple juice – aka, sugar water – into the recipe?)
Alternatively, don’t bother. It’s possible for anyone to moderate themselves by having a smaller slice of [whatever]. Apple pie and pumpkin pie are both fairly healthy (most of the calories are in the crust). People who aren’t interested in being moderate, won’t be pleased with your effort to force it on them.
Too late to edit, I am not one of those people who goes OH NO Chemikuls! but I find the idea that 5 different kinds of processed foods mashed together is somehow “healthier” than a small slice of apple pie made from apples, a little sugar, and cinnamon to be… perplexing.
I’ll second that! Also seconding the idea to bring fruit with a dip - if whipped cream isn’t what you want, mix some cream cheese with a little bit of sugar and some almond flavoring or Amaretto. Sure, the dip is sweet, but you only use a little bit of it on the fruit and overall it’s a light dessert.
You need to make a pavlova. It’s a meringue shell that you fill with any combination of whipped cream or fruit or any variety of fluff. You can make it seriously low-fat and low-sugar or seriously decadent.
I get what you are saying, I really do, but I don’t think Splenda is evil, and there isn’t a cup of juice in my recipe. It’s 8oz of pineapple in juice. There is some juice in the can, but nowhere near a cup. I’m making this for my gathering because I know it’s something I can eat for dessert. I don’t really care if other people can or will eat it because there will be tons of other fatty sugary desserts they can eat. No one will be forcing them to eat anything they don’t want. Strawberries and whipped cream aren’t a “bring worthy” dessert in my opinion. Not saying they aren’t good, but they don’t have a wow factor.
You may be confusing Splenda with nutrasweet (aka Equal). I bake with Splenda or a mix of Splenda and sugar made for baking and don’t get a bitter aftertaste. Nutrasweet breaks down with heat and tastes pretty nasty, OTH.
jsgoddess, we seem to belong in the same desert world!.
I have made pavlovas with artificially sweetened meringue, filled with english custard (w/ skim milk and also artificially sweetened) with whatever soft fruit and berries are at hand.
I have often thought of making a chocolate-y version with dutch cocoa powder in the meringue and custard and perhaps decorated with cream or lowfat cool whip and/or mandarin orange segments. I think this might be a combination that would work. I might try it soon.
My desire for low sugar isn’t so much the low-carb thing as it is that I’ve adopted a more-or-less diabetic diet where I consume a LOT less processed sugar than I used to and my system just can’t handle it anymore. Same with fat. I mean, I literally can’t eat that stuff anymore; I’m either wired from the blood sugar spike and crash, or I get a nasty tummyache. So I’m looking for recipes that I can take to Thanksgiving and other gatherings where a dessert is expected but that I can eat.
Splenda is OK for baking; that’s what it’s for. I just know it’s not for every recipe.
Diabetic diets are low carb. Sugar is a carb. As is flour. So desserts are problematic. If I find a dessert that has less than 30 carbs a serving, I let myself enjoy it if there isn’t anything with less. I usually shoot for 15-25 unless I’ve planned for a splurge by not having very many carbs earlier.
There are several websites with recipes developed for diabetics. Diabetic Living has some really good ones and some interesting ones I have yet to try. Their site is down at the moment, annoyingly.
Baked apples with brown sugar and cinnamon are a good diabetic friendly dessert. Use Splenda brown sugar instead of regular brown sugar. I have a recipe somewhere on my computer if you want it. It’s really easy and easy to increase. I’ve also made it with apple chunks instead of whole stuffed apples, added some extra pecan pieces and it was awesome.
I shouldn’t have used the phrase “diabetic diet” to describe what I’m doing. When I joined Weight Watchers in January, I gave up a lot of the sugar I was eating, but non-sugar carbs were never a problem for me since I’m not a huge fan of bread, rice, or pasta; all I had to do with these was to switch to whole grains and measure my portions. (It’s not that I didn’t like them, it’s just that I can take them or leave them.) So, for me at least, flour isn’t the problem, but sugar is.