By now, if you’ve been reading CliqueClack Food for any length of time, you’ve probably figured out that in the McDuffee household, we eat slightly … how shall we say … off center. No refined sugars, no wheat, no cow dairy — that can put a damper on desserts. Somehow we do just fine, as evidenced in the above picture of a gorgeous coconut milk flan that has become one of our favorite go-tos.

We use this recipe for coconut milk flan from a blog with an awesome name: Spilt Wine and Sticky Rice. Actually, it’s mostly awesome, but the part about the wine being spilt is a little bit sad.

Regardless, this recipe is wonderful in its simple perfection. Perfect except for one little thing — the refined sugar. We went out on a limb and tried the recipe using the amazing coconut palm sugar that has completely changed desserts for us. Imagine, a truly unrefined sugar that won’t wreak havoc on your blood sugar levels, that’s full of nutrients and tastes great. Palm sugar is it and leaves Sucanat in the dust. My nutritional kinesthiologist says so, and that’s all you really have to know about it.

The caramel comes out so thick and syrupy, it’s almost as if you used molasses, yet the taste isn’t quite so overpowering. We’ve actually made this recipe with evaporated cane juice in the past (shhh … don’t tell), thinking that it wouldn’t work with palm sugar, and we were wrong: it is infinitely better with palm sugar.

I just ate the last one … no more leftovers. The sun somehow shines not quite as brightly today.

For weeks — weeks, I tell you — I’ve been craving custard. A custard pie, to be exact.

If I need one on the fly, a good alternative comes from Marie Callendar’s … but I have issues with the place. And those issues crop up when my wife and I visit. Each time we’ve gone into one, someone’s usually cleaning … with vinegar. I kid you not.

You know what a whiff of vinegar will do to your appetite? Whether you’re popping into one of these establishments to sit and dine or to simply pick up a dessert to go, a simple waft of the stuff is an instant hunger killer, that’s what.

So … what to do, what to do. Swing by a Marie Calendar’s and snag a pie with the hopeless hope I can complete a transaction while holding my breath?

Or quit being a slacker and just bake one?

I opted for the latter.

I have an old recipe. And since it’s been ages since I last pulled it out, it was about time I did so. (You can see the result of my effort above.)

The recipe itself is pretty fool proof and you most likely have all the ingredients sitting around in your kitchen anywho, so why not give it a whirl? I know you can do it. It really is a simple process. And isn’t it about time you did something other than poke your finger at a microwave to warm up that barely-tolerable apple pie?

Beside setting a timer so you don’t forget you have a pie in the oven, there are two relatively simple things to do: 1) Make life easy for yourself and, 2) Make certain your pie turns out spiffy.

1) For An Easy Life: If you’re not savvy at making your own crust (I prefer not to), there are a multitude of pre-made, uncooked pie crusts out there in the refrigerated section of your local grocer. Go buy one. There’s no shame in doing so. You’ll thank me. One less thing … you know?

2) For A Spiffy Pie: Scald the milk. Seriously. It’s not that hard. Here … I’ll prove it: Ever burn something? If you have, you can scald milk. Or at least fake it pretty easily. Scalded milk is nothing more than milk that’s been heated to around 180-185°F for a spell. Yeah, yeah, yeah … I know — no one scalds milk anymore. Wrong! You do. You know why? Because it will make your pie better, that’s why. Not only will it dissolve the ingredients more thoroughly (less work for you!), it will help your pie set up better, firmer. You don’t want a sloshy custard pie, do you? I didn’t think so.

Or — if you must take a short cut — you can always forgo the scalding and simply replace a 1/2 cup of the milk called for with condensed milk. But if I were you, I’d scald it. This is your pie we’re talkin’ about here and you want it done right. Besides … there’s just something about scorching food that gets your aggressions worked out … you know what I mean?

So … here’s how you scald milk:  Slowly warm the below noted amount in a pan until steaming. Use a whisk and stir it occasionally until the first wisps of steam begin to come off the surface. Then, continuously whisk it for about 5 minutes or so. Remove from stove. Voila! Scalded milk. (Use a double boiler if you’re a scaredy-cat and a’feared of scorching your pan.)

Now … ready to bake a custard pie? Hokay … here we go:

Michael’s Custard Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 9″ pie crust (unbaked)
• 2 1/2 cups scalded milk (or 2 cups of scalded milk and a can of condensed milk)
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar (I prefer cane sugar, but white sugar will work just fine, too)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg white (you can add the egg yolk from this egg to the 3 eggs above, if you like)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (Use freshly ground nutmeg if you can; it gives finished product extra *umph*. Use more or less to your preference.)

What to do with the ingredients:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Mix eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla. Slowly add scalded milk, stirring ingredients in well while doing so.
3. Line a pie dish or pie pan with the unbaked crust and brush with egg white to help prevent sogginess. (I like to spritz a glass pie dish with a little cooking spray to assure ease of removal.)
4. Slowly pour custard mixture into the pie crust.
5. Sprinkle top with nutmeg.
6. Bake for approximately 35 minutes. Insert knife or toothpick in the center of the pie. If your implement of choice comes out of the pie cleanly, the pie is done. Otherwise, give it 5 or so more minutes. Keep you eye on it if it needs a bit more time to cook.
7. Cool to firmness.
8. Slice a hunk and marvel at your accomplishment. Mmmm, mmmm good.

There you go. Deliciousness, courtesy of your very own fingertips. You’ll surprise your family, your friends and yourself.

See? I told you you could do it.

I haven’t been writing a lot, but I have been cooking … and creating … and baking. Oh, the baking. And when life stops getting in the way of my food blogging, you just may hear about some of the recipes we’ve been enjoying.

For now, I’m sharing the skillet cookie that has basically taken over my life. It’s pretty much Heidi Swanson’s whole wheat chocolate chip skillet cookie with 2 and 1/2 cups of whole spelt flour and 1/2 cup arrowroot instead of the whole wheat flour and about 1 and 2/3 cups of palm sugar instead of the 2 cups brown and white sugars.

This isn’t a skillet cookie like these skillet cookies, which you actually cook on the stove top. It’s called such because you bake one giant cookie in a skillet in the oven, much like you’d do cornbread. And I’ve learned some tricks from making this recipe so many times. …

First, this recipe halves very nicely and fits perfectly into a 9-inch cake pan, if you want a smaller cookie. The full-sized recipe easily serves 12-16 people, so you decide how many leftovers you want.

I also didn’t have an oven-safe skillet large enough for the full-sized recipe, so I used a 12-inch springform pan and it worked great. The edges still got cookie-crisp and it was thick enough to slice like a cake.

If you substitute with just straight whole spelt flour, it is a bit crumbly, but the arrowroot helps with that and I’m betting you could use tapioca flour with the same results.

You can serve it after it’s had some time to cool but when the chocolate bits are still melty, or it’s also easy to make ahead and reheat in a 200 degree oven for about 10 minutes to get the same effect.

However you do it, just make it. It will probably take over your life too.

Picture this timeless romantic tableau, courtesy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness

That’s all well and good. Lovely even. But there’s something missing which might make it simply perfect: cheese and chocolate.

This is where a classic comes in. Fondue. It’s my favorite romantic meal and it’s SO easy to create at home for a dinner for two or a treat for the kiddos. Check it out. …

First, the right equipment is rather crucial to the fondue experience. The fondue pot, that copper relic from your parents’ ’60s dinner parties, has been updated and streamlined and is available for not a lot of coin at Target, in the event you don’t have one.

I have used a mini crock pot in a pinch in lieu of a real fondue pot – most memorably during a dinner “party” in college designed to impress a gentleman friend but which turned into a celebration of very cheap wine and party crashers. (PS: I did impress my gentleman friend when all was said and done and those people left the apartment. But I digress.)

The great thing about fondue is that it’s all about two things: prep and assemblage.  My favorite recipe is a time-tested one, originally printed in Gourmet magazine in 1966 and currently shared on Epicurious.com. I adapted it a bit after a couple of test drives – but it still proves that you can’t beat a classic.

Cheese Fondue

Ingredients:

• 1 garlic clove, halved crosswise
• 1 1/2 cups dry white wine (I like a dry Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc)
• 2 teaspoons kirsch liqueur
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 lb Emmental cheese, coarsely grated (2 cups)
• 1/2 lb Gruyère, coarsely grated (2 cups)
• 1/4 lb Appenzeller, coarsely grated (1 cup) (optional, but man does it add something)
• pinch fresh ground nutmeg

Accompaniment: cubes of French bread; apple slices; mushrooms; parboiled red potatoes or other veggies of your choice.

Rub inside of a 4-quart heavy pot with cut sides of garlic, then discard garlic. Add wine to pot and bring just to a simmer over moderate heat.

Toss grated cheese together with cornstarch. Gradually add cheese to pot and cook, stirring constantly in a zigzag pattern (not a circular motion) to prevent cheese from balling up, until cheese is just melted and creamy (do not let boil). Add kirsch and stir in. Bring fondue to a simmer and cook, stirring, until thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Mix in ground nutmeg.

Transfer to fondue pot set and serve with dipping accompaniments.

Now that takes care of the main course. But … is there a better way to end a meal, romantic or not, than with something chocolate? Wait. Don’t answer that. But seriously – a little sweet cocoa delight puts a solid exclamation point on an evening. This recipe, adapted from one from Tyler Florence, is delicious – and better yet, it’s adaptable to suit your tastes.  I like to use Kahlua, but any liqueur or flavored syrup work well.

Chocolate Fondue

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces dark chocolate, broken in pieces
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken in pieces
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup caramel topping
• 3 tablespoons flavored syrup or liqueur

Place all ingredients in fondue pot over low heat. Stir constantly until the mixture is melted and smooth. Do not allow to bubble. Great foods for dipping in the fondue include strawberries, bananas, apples, grapes, cherries, bite-sized pound cake pieces and marshmallows.

Fondue. Easy. Romantic. Delicious. So what are you waiting for – go get to dipping!

I eat a little bit of dark, dark chocolate almost every day. I’m almost sure it keeps the blood flowing in my veins and the antioxidants keep me immortal healthy. No, I am not full of it — I’m like a chocolate vampire. Really. Except the only effect the sunlight has is to sometimes melt the chocolate. …

Each year for Valentine’s Day, Keith and I like to cook up something yummy together and top it off with a spectacular dessert, usually of the chocolate variety. Last year, I had a hard time choosing between these desserts, but it was the falling chocolate cake with raspberry sauce that ultimately won us over. Here are this year’s contenders:

I know, we’ve made Bea’s chocolate tahini gooey cakes about a thousand times (including just last week) but it remains one of our favorites. If we make these, we know that we’re guaranteed the perfect dessert.

Now, if it turns out that we’re in a comfort food kind of mood, I’m definitely making Heidi Swanson’s chocolate chip skillet cookies. Instead of whole wheat flour, I’d use spelt and I’d definitely cut down the amount of sugar. This would satisfy the lazy in me as well, since I wouldn’t have to make individual cookies. So, so lazy. …

Perhaps I’ll want to satisfy the one-bite dessert lover in me; in that case, I’ll be making these chocolate Chambord truffles, but I’ll be using coconut milk instead of heavy cream.

Yeah, I found yet another recipe for molten chocolate cake (I really should do a roundup of those someday), this one spiked with the liquor of your choice. They are nearly flourless, but I’m thinking that the bit that is in there will give these cakes just enough texture to be perfect. And spelt ought to work. …

The radical choice would be these chocolate-orange pots de creme with candied orange peel. Radical, because I’d have to suspend all laziness to attend to the details of this recipe and also because I’d have to take a huge leap of faith in assuming that my bizarre substitutions for dairy will work in this recipe. Can I pull off a food-snob pudding with goat yogurt and coconut milk? If I can make custards and flan with coconut milk and truffles with goat yogurt (which I can), I’m thinking yes.

Time will tell which one it will be … which one would you make?

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Just like last year, Keith and I celebrated New Year’s Eve at around 7:00, with a fancy dining room table meal with the now 6-year-old. We decided to fancy up last year’s rack of lamb (the pre-seasoned Trader Joe’s version) and make this recipe for roast lamb with lamb sausage crust and grape pan sauce from Epicurious instead.

Words cannot describe how worth it making this recipe was. It was a lot more work than Trader Joe’s, but every bite was heaven. Although I kept thinking that this meal probably would have killed Kona. …

We served the lamb and sauce with rice cooker drunken risotto and haricots verts with fresh sage and pancetta (which admittedly were leftovers that Bob made for our Christmas celebration the night before).

For dessert we tried La Tartine Gourmande’s baked lime custards with raspberries. The flavor combination of lime, ginger, coconut milk and raspberries is so perfect and the texture so light that I didn’t even mourn the fact that my dessert wasn’t chocolate. This will be the next dessert we serve for guests.

You may be out partying, but I’m about to go to the fridge for a second lime custard. I wouldn’t trade places with you for all of the champagne in the world. Although if you offered me lime custard, I might be in a bit of a quandary.

I’m at a real disadvantage this year … my cookie swap partners have abandoned me! Two are dieting and another has developed multiple food allergies so I’m baking by my lonesome. During the holidays, I like to bring a cookie tray with me to every gathering, so that I know Owen has a dessert he can eat. These are a few of the cookies and bars that have made it to my tray this year:

I make these chewy ginger cookies every year. I really want to make my friend Michelle’s (former cookie swapper extraordinaire) ginger cookies, but I’ve written about her before … she’s the one who clearly leaves out ingredients (or adds ones she doesn’t tell us about) to make us all beg her to bake for us. It’s a cruel trick — nothing ever comes out as good as when Michelle bakes it.

I’ve made these chewy chocolate cinnamon cookies before, but I wish I had made a few notes when last I baked them. I used agave instead of the corn syrup and palm sugar instead of refined sugar, but I really, really needed to cut back the amount. These are far too sweet for my tastes (but I bet most people with a sweet tooth would devour them). I like a cookie heavy on the chocolate and light on the sweet … these do not fit the bill. I did remember that they weren’t cinnamon-y enough for me last time, so I added 1/2 teaspoon to the batter as well as to the rolling sugar (turbinado — look how big and sparkly it is). I’ll try these again next year because the texture is fantastic … but I’ll make them for my tastes instead!

You’re also going to want to cut back the sugar in these triple chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies, but you do want to bake them (and you do want to use the parchment paper … it’s magic). They taste even better than they sound, if that’s at all possible. Somehow I’m always lazy and I skip the white chocolate drizzle part; this year, I froze them before that step, so we’ll see if I do it after the thaw. I’m betting laziness takes over.

I made these chocolate raspberry crumb bars in all of their evil goodness. They are perfect just the way they are … if you want to spike your blood sugar, overload your mucus membranes with dairy and get a wicked headache from the wheat. What do you mean, that’s just me? I found a few substitutions that worked fabulously in a very similar recipe …

… for chocolate mint bars. These are getting rave reviews from all who try them. I made the basic dough with spelt flour and palm sugar, and instead of sweetened condensed milk, I used agave syrup and coconut milk. Ghiradelli chocolate chips and mint extract made the minty part. And I left out the walnuts to satisfy the multiple food allergy people in my life. It’s all good.

These chocolate crinkles I didn’t make (yet!), but I’m a sucker for chocolate and a sucker for a crinkle. This recipe calls for a holy load of sugar though, and I know they’d be too sweet for me. When I make these, I’ll cut the sugar way back and probably roll the dough in a mixture of powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Because more chocolate can never be a bad thing.

You know it wouldn’t be a post from me without a perfectly healthy dessert option — these cookie cutter cookies are it. No, I’m not making them, but it’s not because I don’t think they’d be tasty … I’m simply a drop-cookie gal. Yep, it’s because I’m lazy.

I’m not an avid follower of The Pioneer Woman because frankly, she intimidates me. Have you been over to her site? Do you see how much she does? I can’t keep up, so I just kind of pretend she doesn’t exist. However, I do follow her on Twitter, so I’m able to keep abreast of anything super-important that comes up, such as Black Heels to Tractor Wheels and Cookie Week.

Luckily, Cookie Week happened to coincide perfectly with the cookie exchange that I attended with El and Lo. After scrolling through the entries, I decided that I wanted to incorporate salt, so I stopped dead when I saw Two Peas and Their Pod’s Chocolate Caramel with Sea Salt cookies.

The recipe was automatically intriguing, not just because of the sea salt, but because it didn’t have any eggs. Instead, it uses plain yogurt. The recipe also included a filling, which I’ve never done before. I balked when I saw that the caramel they used was $25 a box, but decided to forge ahead with whatever I could find at Target.

I ended up with a bag of store-brand soft caramels. I was worried that they wouldn’t be soft enough, but while it required a little elbow grease, I was able to roll them into balls pretty easily.

The rest of the process is pretty simple: no mixer required. The directions just say to wrap the cookie dough around the caramel balls, but I wasn’t sure how much to put. Eventually, I started surrounding the caramel with the least amount of dough possible, hoping to get more cookies out. Luckily, it seemed to work pretty well.

They baked in only about 10 minutes, and then I had just tons of chocolaty, chewy, sweet, salty, caramel goodness. These are seriously the best cookies I’ve ever made, and I plan on making them again for Christmas morning. Regardless of any presents I buy, these cookies are going to make me the Christmas hero.

I really love blondies. They are like chocolate chip cookies, but gooier. When it comes to desserts, any goo is good goo. I’ve always loved my old recipe for blondies, which ironically I wasn’t able to find when I wanted to make some recently, and I still can’t find … but that’s OK because these are infinitely better.

I’ve got to give Smitten Kitchen some of the credit, since I based my recipe off of her blondie recipe. The brilliant addition of coconut though … that’s all me. It’s scary the amount of creativity that comes out when attempting to satisfy a craving. I’ve been dreaming about the taste of coconut and chocolate but really wasn’t in the mood for the texture of my healthy coconut-chocolate macaroons, so I figured I’d try dumping some shredded coconut right into the blondies. I’ll be doing that again.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Blondies

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil
• 2/3 cup palm sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 1 cup spelt flour
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I use grain-sweetened)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

This was a one-bowl beauty, ladies and gentlemen — simple mix the butter and sugar together, then add the egg and vanilla and mix well. You could use your mixer for this, which is normally my style, but I didn’t this time and it worked out great.

Stir in salt and flour, mix and then stir in the chocolate chips and coconut. Spread into an 8×8 inch pan (grease it first) and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Not too long — you want them just a little bit gooey in the middle.

With the cooler weather, my love for comfort food is starting to kick in. I made my first crock pot meal since last winter this week, and all of the baked goods recipes crossing my path are sending my cravings into full gear.

I love pumpkin bread, and this recipe uses spelt flour, yogurt, and maple syrup. It also calls for pumpkin pie spice, which I assume is nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and allspice mixed together — can anyone enlighten me? The only thing offensive is the nuts … they just don’t belong in breads, cookies or brownies. My sister is the only one in our family who disagrees (which she inherited from my grandmother….).

When I find a great flourless recipe, I save it for safe keeping, and this one has been an open window in my browser for months. How good does orange almond cake sound? Pretty good, you think? Well, try topping it with dark chocolate shavings. Yep, you’re clicking on the link right now, I can feel it.

Is it even possible that Better Homes and Gardens is sending out their holiday recipes already? It’s kind of stressing me out, but I still set aside a few to try since they are really different from any I’ve ever made before:

• Date-walnut honey bars, made with apple jelly
• White chocolate and nutmeg bars, made with dried and fresh cranberries
• Cranberry blondies, ditto
• Cranberry pear bars, with oatmeal and pear nectar
• Chocolate mint bars, so I can try replacing the condensed milk with coconut milk

I’m definitely not into the vegan thing. Eggs are a gift from the food gods not to be squandered. But I will say those feisty vegan bakers and their recipes saved me when my kid was allergic to eggs in the first three years of his life. in fact, almost any recipe by Isa was a big hit in our house with anyone … not just the eggless. And I have a really mean extended family who’s not afraid to tell me when my cooking sucks.

One of our favorites is Isa’a chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe. I have a cousin who has specifically requested these cookies, so that’s very telling. For years, it was revered and I wouldn’t mess with it even a little bit (I’m such a liar … I never use canola oil, so I’d use butter, rice bran oil, or coconut oil). Lately, though, I’ve started messing for a couple of reasons.

I’m sort of off chocolate, in theory. I’ll eat a chocolate dessert now and then, but I’m proud to say I no longer hoarf down a handful of chocolate chips every time I pass the pantry closet. Yeah, I’m prouder than the mom of a round-headed newborn.

I really don’t like the kid to have too much chocolate either since caffeine and the under-6 crowd of bad sleepers really don’t mix. We’ll try anything, even tricking him.

And now we’re back at the messing. A couple of weeks ago, I made Isa’s recipe with half cocoa powder and half carob powder. No one could tell, so I started getting crazy. I added, substituted and made the recipe mine, all mine. And in my house, anyway, we think it’s better.

It’s healthier, super-delicious but still “normal.” I held myself back from adding pureed spinach, but used the most nutritious unrefined sugar I could find, used coconut milk instead of soy milk and some of the oil and this and that until it fit my specs for healthy. Try it and see what you think.

Carob Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut and Cranberries

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup rice bran oil + 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 1/2 cups palm sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon whole flax seeds
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups whole spelt flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened carob powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup fruit-sweetened dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)

Grind the flax seeds in a blender until they become a powder, then add the 1/2 cup of coconut milk and blend more, until the mixture thickens a bit and gets gooey.

Meanwhile, mix flour, carob powder, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl.

Using a mixer (yes, Isa, I’m willing to lose the punk points), cream together the oil + coconut milk and the palm sugar, then add the flax mixture and vanilla and keep on mixing until mixture is almost fluffy.

Slowly add the dry ingredients while mixer is set to low speed. Blend well then stir in chocolate chips, cranberries and coconut.

Plop onto greased cookie sheets and make semi-pretty circles almost 2 inches around, slightly flattened in the middle. These do rise and expand, so leave at least an inch between cookies.

Bake for 10 minutes, let cool for 10 minutes on the pan and then cool the rest of the way on wire racks.

Somehow everything that makes a perfect dinner just jumped into this post and before I knew it, a very special dinner menu was born. It’s definitely not something I’d cook for a weeknight, but if I had a quiet weekend this might be just the menu. It’s a definite for a special occasion, though — I’m thinking a romantic dinner for two … but then again, aren’t most busy moms?

This blueberry sauce for beef just sounds so perfect … but I’ve become a lazy cook lately and it might not get made until a special occasion. Since the anniversary already passed, along with the birthdays, I might just have to wait until New Year’s Eve or Valentine’s Day to enjoy this one … though it really isn’t hard to make.

Here’s the side dish to my beef with blueberry sauce, since I’m feeling too lazy to make this spiced tomato gratin, but oh, does it get my salivary glands into a tizzy….

And for dessert — chocolate nut cake. I love that Bea over at La Tartine Gourmande mostly cooks gluten-free. Her desserts are divine and I can always find something that fits our way of eating … with perhaps some sugar substitutes.

What do you think? Serve it up with a gourmet mesclun salad and it’s the perfect dinner.

I will admit that, in general, I am kind of a health nut. It’s mostly because I was raised to think that way, and I’m sure if my mother was reading this (hi, Mom!) she’d laugh at me, but it’s true. Compared to most people, or at least Americans, I’m a very healthy eater. Lots of fruit and veggies, all-natural and organic, as few byproducts and chemicals as possible, use olive oil instead of butter, leaner cuts of meat, rarely eat red meat – the whole shebang. But if there’s one area that I completely fail at eating healthy, it’s desserts.

Partially, it’s quantity. I just have a massive sweet tooth, and it’s hard to say no to a cupcake when the only interesting thing to eat besides that is a yogurt. And, partially, it’s the fact that when I eat dessert, it’s never healthy (for a dessert), like a piece of chocolate and fruit, or a light coffee cake. No. Whatever. I’m eating dessert. I want it to be bad for me. I want it to be terrible for me. That’s why I’m eating dessert. That, and because when food is bad for you, it’s kind of delicious.

Case in point: the Blanc Manger (or Blancmange). I discovered this tasty confection last summer and instantly fell in love. It’s essentially a whipped cream gelatin, or a very, very light cheesecake. And since whipped cream and cheesecake are two of my favorite desserts, when I saw the recipe I knew I had to make it. Convincing my mother, however, was another story, because she’s one of those healthy dessert people. She’d be all “but it’s so bad for you!” and then I’d be all “but it’s dessert! It’s supposed to be! Plus, it’s got tons of calcium, and aren’t you always saying I need more calcium?” and she was all “yes, but not if you’re going to die of a coronary at the age of 45.”

I finally wore her down and made a traditional peach blanc manger last summer, and it was absolute bliss, but it was, frankly, kind of boring. I could do better. It took another year’s worth of wrangling and begging before getting my mom to give in with a giant sigh to me trying my newest blanc manger experiment, mostly because it was for after Yom Kippur and if there’s one way I can convince her to be unhealthy, it’s with the arguments of “but it’s a holiday!” and “I’m taking it to other people’s house, so I’m not going to eat all of it”.

My idea was simple — I wanted to start experimenting with spices and taking desserts to a more exotic place, and I’d set my eyes on cardamom to serve that purpose once I read that it was often used in fruit dishes in Middle Eastern cuisine. Originally I was going to pair it with figs, but I’d never worked with figs before, and so that left me a little gun shy. Instead to keep it out of the ordinary, I mixed in some cinnamon and nutmeg with the cardamom, and threw in a little espresso powder so it had a Turkish coffeehouse feel to it. (I say having never left this country for anywhere more exotic than Canada.)

A traditional blanc manger is served either out of a custard bowl or over sponge cake, and more modern ones are served over a graham cracker crust, so I tossed that aside for a ground almond crust and voila! This cake/blanc manger/not-really-a-torte-but-close-enough was a huge hit. It was delicious. And you know why it’s delicious?

It’s really, really bad for you.

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Julia’s Coffee House Torte

Crust:
2 cups ground almonds
½ cup butter, softened
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 tbl sugar

Cake:
1½ cups heavy cream
¾ tsp cardamom
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¾ cup whole milk
¾  cup ground almonds
½ cup sugar
1 generous tbl instant espresso powder
¼ ounce packet of gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
2 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: Chocolate chips/shavings for garnish

1. First, create the crust by mixing the almonds, butter, cinnamon, and sugar together. You can use a fork if you’re squeamish, but hands work best. Mix until it’s a soft, consistent texture, and then press into the bottom of a springform pan. The size of the pan isn’t terribly important since this is a no-bake recipe. I used a 10″ pan because that’s what we have at my house, and it turned out a flatter cake. If you want a thicker cake, I suggest an 8″ pan. If the butter got very soft from the heat of your hands, put the crust in the refrigerator to chill.
2. Using a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the cream, cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg until cream holds soft peaks. Do not over-beat, or you’ll get butter. Put whipped cream to the side, or refrigerate if it’s warm out.
3. Get a pot (and make sure it’s big enough to hold the whipped cream you just made, because that will go in there eventually), and pour together the milk, almonds, sugar, and espresso powder. Put on medium to low heat until the sugar and espresso dissolve and the mixture is consistent. Stir occasionally to make sure the milk doesn’t scald.
4. While your milk mixture is heating up, prepare an ice bath for the pan.
5. In a small, microwave-safe bowl, empty the gelatin packet, and then add water. Mix with a fork until the gelatin is spongy, and then heat in the microwave for fifteen seconds, just long enough for it to turn liquid. Pour the liquid gelatin in the milk mixture and immediately remove the pot from the heat.
6. Put the pot in the ice bath to cool it. Add in vanilla, and stir liquid until it’s cool, but do not leave the milk in so long that it begins to gel.
7. Once the mixture is cool, gently fold in your whipped cream, mixing until the color is consistent.  Spread over the almond crust, and then place in the refrigerator. Ideally set to gel overnight, but gel for at least three hours before serving.
8. When you are ready to serve, take out of the refrigerator and garnish with chocolate, if desired. Before you take the cake out of the springform pan, be sure to run a butter knife around the edge to separate. Keep any leftovers refrigerated.

We don’t eat like a normal family, so sugary lemonade is never an option in our house. We don’t buy popsicles because of the sugar and dye, so we make our own. Ditto for ice cream. I was thrilled to find these recipes that will add some new variations to our homemade healthy versions of these summer stand-bys.

I’ve been meaning to experiment with stevia, and I even bought some stevia powder this week. So it stands to reason that this recipe for sugar-free lemonade calls for liquid stevia … yeah. I usually use agave syrup when I make lemonade but I definitely want to try this.

These raspberry and peach popsicles sound absolutely delicious … but I’ll admit they are much more complicated to make than my usual lemon juice, water and agave pops. I hope I’ll forgo laziness and give them a try because I think I’d enjoy these as much as the five-year-old.

I’m completely sold on strawberry coconut milk ice cream and I’ve been reading about frozen banana soft serve. This recipe for better than ice cream seems to combine the best of both for a healthy and fruity frozen dessert.

What are some healthy summer treat recipes you make?

I’ll be the first one to admit that not every gluten-free dessert is a taste sensation. Oftentimes, they are dry and crumbly, bland and blah. That was not the case with the raspberry almond torte I baked tonight, though.

We cooked for my parents today, mostly just because but also because they took such good care of the cat while we spent a few days at the beach a couple of weeks ago. It was a really wonderful meal that we kept simple so that we could just enjoy being together and not spend the whole day in the kitchen (the grill … oh, how I love a grill meal).

I finally made the crushed pea spread that I’ve been drooling over for weeks and I was right to drool so shamelessly — the combination of sweet peas, goat cheese, tahini, lemon juice, fresh mint and scallions was perfection. I served it with baguette and fresh radish slices and shaved pecorino romano cheese.

For dinner, we marinated a black angus flank steak in an orange soy marinade, grilled some romaine hearts and red potato slices and served some green and yellow beans with poppy seed dressing alongside the grilled mishmash.

Instead of making my go-to zucchini chocolate chip cookies, I was torn between the orange almond flan and the raspberry almond torte for dessert. So you’ve read the title of this post and know which dessert came out the winner, but what I haven’t yet told you was just how delicious it was. We served it with some homemade vanilla coconut milk ice cream with a good portion of Greek yogurt blended in … divine. Here’s the clincher — my dad, my very hard-to-please, dessert-hating chef of a dad said that he could have eaten the entire half of the torte that was left over. That, my friends, is better than the five-year-old seal of approval (which, by the way, I also got in spades).

Now don’t go reading anything Freudian into this. If any of you know me (including my dad who’s probably reading this only because my mother forwarded to him), you know that seeking my father’s approval has never been a big priority for me. I was the fresh, defiant kid (I know, hard to believe) who would go toe-to-toe with my hot-tempered dad when the other siblings would run for the hills to avoid the frothing spittle spewing from his lips. Thankfully, he’s mellowed a lot since then and so have I, and although I’m happy my dad enjoyed the torte, I would love it no matter what.

It was very easy to make, it’s gluten-free and has very little sugar in it (and even then it’s unrefined sugar and maple syrup) and it’s almost pretty. Sure, it could have done with a layer of chocolate (couldn’t everything?) but it was a relatively awesome dessert that topped off this summer meal perfectly. Don’t hold its gluten-free vegan-ness against it — it’s a wonderful torte.

My parents were away for the weekend, my sister was out for the day, and I was home alone with a refrigerator full of food and my mother’s vague instructions that maybe I should do something with it instead of sitting on my couch all weekend watching the all-day Dogs v. Cats marathon on Animal Planet. (Which, whatever, was totally awesome.) I’d sauteed up the kale, I’d made some turkey meatballs that were good but the recipe needed tweaking before I was comfortable showing it to anyone, and all we had for dessert was a frostbitten fudgesicle, mango sorbet, and three over-ripe peaches that my mom told me I should get rid of. And then somewhere between my billionth episode of Dogs 101 I had a terrible, brilliant idea.

I should make up a dessert recipe.

Okay, for those of you who don’t get why this is a terrible idea, allow me to explain — anyone can make up cooking. Making up cooking is relatively easy. Cooking is not fussy. Cooking doesn’t deal with chemistry. What’s important in cooking is getting the ingredients un-raw (most of the time). All anyone really needs to make up their own recipe for dinner is a bunch of ingredients they know and a spice rack. I’ve only been seriously cooking for about a year and a half and I’ve made up at least five recipes. But making up baking recipes is very difficult.  Baking is chemistry (something I barely scraped by with a B in during summer school because it was easier than taking it during the school year). It’s an exact science. And if you start playing with ratios or substituting things you better damn well know what you’re doing. My only other experimentation with creating dessert was what I refer to as “The Lemon Meringue Implosion of 2008″ which, well, I think you can figure out how that turned out. But, with great trepidation, I forged ahead, combining a few of my favorite cupcake recipes and hoping the result didn’t turn out too badly, and totally pulling the frosting recipe out of thin air. And you know what? It didn’t suck. In fact, quite the opposite, it turned out delightful.

My aim, which I think I succeeded at, was to move away from the idea that summer fruit recipes have to be light and fluffy. I’ve tried a peach cupcake recipe before and it was good, but the cupcake around the peach was kind of bland. I still wanted the peach to be the star, but I wanted it to have an ensemble of sexy supporting characters like whipped cream (which I wanted to be stiff enough to hold up as frosting) and honey and spices.  I wanted cupcakes that I could just have easily been named “Auntie Clarabelle’s Spiced Peach Cupcakes” because you eat them in Ju-ly on your veranda while sippin’ on sweet tea and listenin’ to the sound of banjo music and breezes through the magnolia trees.

I mean, the only time I’ve ever crossed the Mason-Dixie line in my life was to go to Disney World so I’m not sure if my vision succeeded in that aspect, but I’d like to hope so. I’ve at least succeeded in one way — yum.

Spiced Peach Cupcakes
(Makes roughly 16 regular-sized cupcakes)

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamon
3 peaches, peeled and diced in ¼ inch squares
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. In a separate bowl, stir together dry mixture (flour, baking powder, salt, spices).
3. First mix the two sugars together until the mixture is fairly uniform. Then cream the butter and sugar mixture together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium speed until soft and creamy.
4. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition to combine before adding the next.
5. Alternate between milk and dry ingredients mixture, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding more.
6. Mix in diced peaches.
7. Using an ice cream scoop fill each cupcake liner.  Don’t be afraid to make the liners quite full, this recipe doesn’t rise much.
8. Bake in oven for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Don’t worry if the tops look a little oily, that’s normal.
9. Let cupcakes cool before frosting.

Honey Cream Frosting
2 tbsp butter (room temperature)
2½ tbsp honey
1 cup heavy cream

1. Cream together butter and honey until there are no lumps left
2. Add cream. Beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks, but do not whip so long it begins to clump — that means it has turned from whipped cream to butter.

Out of all of these recipes, that brioche is the one that makes me salivate the most. The combination of goat cheese and sweet peas … pardon me while I wipe my chin….

I love the way Heidi Swanson describes this chocolate loaf cake as “unattractive.” But she’s a girl after my own heart … she changed up a Nigella Lawson recipe with spelt flour and Muscovado sugar. It’s very few recipes for baked goods that I don’t have to change up a bit, but this one I’d make as-is.

Now, this recipe for raw energy bars in another story. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make them less sugary? I get that there’s no added sugar, but that’s a lot of dried fruit which is basically concentrated sugar, no mater how natural. I like that it’s not honey or agave or brown rice syrup, though, so I may give these a go with less fruit and see if they stick.

This simple brioche with crushed peas … I just can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’s because the peas from our CSA farm are one of the greatest things to happen to vegetables ever, or perhaps it’s the goat cheese, radish, watercress, shaved Parmesan….

Really? Could a dessert really be this simple? Raw foodists, celebrate, because all you have to do for a soft-serve ice cream is whip frozen bananas in your food processor. I’m not in love with anything too banana-y, but I’m definitely willing to give this one a try.

As I was dumping the ingredients for these brownies into my food processor, making this recipe for the first time, I was thinking to myself, “This may be the grossest dessert I have ever attempted. OK, maybe not the grossest. That would have to be the carob avocado banana pudding, which actually isn’t half bad.

People, I have hit rock bottom. This recipe doesn’t come from a place of healthy love for all foods good for you — I am desperate. Keith and I have given up caffeine, chocolate and white sugar for a couple of months to cleanse and I’m flippin’ hungry. Sure, I’ve lost five pounds and quite frankly look fabulous in my summer clothes, but I’m not sure the trade-off is worth it … I’m wasting away, I tell you!

I jest a little because I honestly don’t miss my nightly dose of chocolate as much as I thought I would, though I do wish I could have the occasional special treat. Enter these black bean brownies. Now, I’ve been making a recipe similar to these black bean brownies for years, but this recipe was a little bit different. It caught my eye because there were bananas in it, which cut back the amount of sweetener by over a cup from my other recipe.

I had to change things up a bit, but there was no time like the present to try, since Owen is going to a birthday party tomorrow and he can’t eat the cake with all his food allergies. Believe it or not (I’m still in awe), what I came up with works. It really works. I’m not feeling like I’m eating a second-rate dessert (the cinnamon is brilliant!) and they just looked so pretty when I took them out of the oven that I almost don’t care that they don’t stay together very well after you cut them.

Black Bean Carob Brownies

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 whole bananas
• 1/4 scant cup of agave syrup
• 1/4 cup carob powder (or cocoa powder if you’re not cleansing….)
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon (brilliant, I say!)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup carob chips (any other day I’d use grain-sweetened chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8×8″ pan and set aside. Combine all ingredients except the carob chips in a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping sides as needed. Stir in carob chips. Pour batter into the pan. Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before slicing. (This is very important. If you try to slice them too soon, they don’t hold together.)

A few notes:

• Store them in the refrigerator after cooling, and cut them when chilled if you don’t want them falling apart on you. They still taste good, but tricky to bring to a party.
• They are mushy, so the chips are a great addition and I’d even throw in some roasted, chopped almonds next time.
• The cinnamon is brilliant — have I mentioned that yet?
• A dollop of coconut milk ice cream sprinkled with granola would top these brownies perfectly.
• The taste is a huge hit with the men in the house, and anyone who likes banana desserts will adore these.

Let me be clear — this is not my favorite dessert in the world, but it satisfied my craving and was pretty yummy. Not perfect, but just what we needed.

UPDATE: My men will not stop going to the refrigerator and snitching from the pan of these brownies. They obviously like them better than I do, or I am not the desperate woman I thought I was….

Although I enjoy my sprouted spelt flour baking, I’m really trying to cut down on my carbs, grains and flours in general. Gluten-free is supposed to be easy to digest but mostly, it’s just a bunch of weird flours that tend not to have much fiber or nutrition.

So I’ve been on a hunt for some gluten-free treat recipes that use real food, not seven different obscure white flours and three different vegetable gums. Luckily, my hunt is proving fruitful and I’ve got some great recipes to share with you. The best news is that you probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry already, but if you don’t, a trip to the closest market will get you all you need.

Elana’s Pantry created this gorgeous cranberry almond loaf that she enjoys slathered with goat cheese (yes please) but that she suggests you could also toast and use for a turkey sandwich. Almond butter, almonds, seeds, eggs and other easy ingredients combine for a flourless bread. OK, so there’s a little bit of arrowroot in it that might be hard to find, but I got my Bob’s Red Mill Arrowroot Starch Flour, 20-Ounce (Pack of 4) for pennies on Amazon.

Yummy — oatmeal carrot cookies are gluten-free if you make sure you get oats that aren’t contaminated, but if you don’t have celiac you probably don’t care. They call for stevia liquid (I know, I really have to explore this stuff) as a sweetener, but I’d just throw in agave syrup, palm sugar, brown rice syrup or a little honey.

Melting Wok’s arrowroot cookies sound divine … it’s the coconut milk that gets me. I’m definitely trying these.

Is it painfully obvious that I have a ton of arrowroot flour and I’m looking for recipes to try? Here are two arrowroot cake recipes — a yellow cake and a double chocolate cake — made with all normal ingredients. Too normal … I’d use palm sugar and organic butter, and replace the cream with plain yogurt. Other than that, I’m anxious to try these recipes because we don’t often make cake.

I just have to give a shout-out to La Tartine Gourmande — she’s got a gluten-free (and fabulous) section on her website, my favorite recipe being the chocolate tahini gooey cake.

It’s not often that I find a collection of dessert recipes like this, all in the same week. Usually, I’m altering more conventional recipes into something naturally sweetened and substituting flours. Most of these ingredients are just fine for everyone’s issues in this house — yay!

Since we’re all taking a short break from chocolate in my house (short … I can only handle short, but it’s been good because I really was eating it abusively and I haven’t missed it quite as much as I thought I would), this carob layer cake caught my eye. It’s only sweetened with honey, agave or brown rice syrup, which I like and she gives alternatives to sugary frostings, which I also like.

I’m attracted to the idea of these raisin bars, because they don’t have sugar in them at all, but I still think all of that dried fruit is going to make them very sweet in their own rite. Since they sound so delicious and I happen to have all of the ingredients in the house, I just may try them.

I may not be OK. I’m not sure how to stop drooling … over the picture … over the recipe for cherry amandines … over the fact that there’s no wheat or white sugar in the recipe … over the fact that Bea used cherries, pits, stems and all, in her beautiful dessert. That’s bold! La Tartine Gourmande, you’ve won my over with this one!

Would you get a look at that creamy goodness? We make ice cream fairly often, partly because we’re careful about our refined sugar and dairy intake but mostly because it’s fun to stand at the ice cream maker with a spoon and snitch as it’s churning. We’d never tried a strawberry ice cream before and now that we have I can’t imagine why it took so long!

Our CSA farm’s strawberries came in early this year — hooray! — so we picked a bunch of luscious ripe berries this weekend. They were so sweet and ripe, they weren’t going to keep long enough for us to just eat them out of the container. So we made ice cream!

A few notes about this recipe: It’s very close to our pumpkin coconut milk ice cream with a few alterations. I was going for creamy — you know, strawberries and cream — so I added some strained Greek yogurt and I really like the way it blends with the coconut milk. Too much yogurt and it would be too sour for my tastes, so don’t be tempted to add more than the recipe calls for unless you’re prepared for a little tang with your sweet.

You know how homemade ice cream gets really hard after you put it in the freezer? One thing I really like about this recipe is that it didn’t until a couple of days later. I think the creaminess of the yogurt combined with all the sugar in the strawberries helped with that. If you still think it gets too hard too fast, add a shot of some strawberry liquor.

Our berries were dripping with sweetness, but if yours are more tart, feel free to add more agave syrup until it’s just the way you like it.

Homemade Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk (14 ounces)
• 1/2 cup Greek strained yogurt, plain (I used 2% because no markets in my area see fit to carry the whole milk version)
• 3 tablespoons agave syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups freshly picked strawberries

In a medium bowl, mash the strawberries with a fork, then whisk in the other ingredients. Dump into your ice cream maker and grab a spoon … in about 10 minutes, you can start snitching while the ice cream churns….

Smoothies, I can understand. The weather’s getting warmer and a cold, frothy drink might be just the thing. Pasta, everyone’s got to eat dinner — why not pasta? But the cookies? I know, not seasonal — but then again, is there a cookie season? Do we need an excuse to drool over cookie recipes? And these two are so interesting they really got me wanting to bake (though I guess that’s not hard).

Heidi Swanson’s quinoa cloud cookies are just so cute. I get that I wouldn’t have to use cloud cookie cutters, but still. I’m also pretty intrigued about cookies made with quinoa flour, something I’ve never tried. Plus, I’d pretty much eat anything with shaved chocolate in it.

Look, more cute cookies, this time star-shaped — thank you Cathe Olson. I love that these sesame almond flourless cookies are, well, flourless. Sesame seeds, almonds, grated orange rind… yum. Almond extract, not so yum, but I’d leave it out and not lose anything in this recipe.

A smoothie made with tea … OK, I can wrap my head around that. However, this jasmine honey lassi combines strongly brewed jasmine tea, honey, yogurt and peaches. Delicous, defintely, but so fragrant I can almost smell it right now.

Heidi Swanson again, this time with a pasta recipe. I need to confess that I’m a bit tired of asparagus in every recipe she creates … or is it just that I’ve been making all of her asparagus recipes lately? Regardless, this one’s got a different twist — pappardelle with Moroccan spiced butter. Saffron, lots of shallots, fresh mint and parsley, pine nuts and yeah, asparagus. It still sounds good.

I’ve been cooking this and that and it’s time for some recipe test drives. What’s interesting to me is that out of these three recipes, the best one belonged to the home cook. The famous chefs missed the mark for me, this time, though I still love them both dearly.

I didn’t think there could possibly be anything wrong with Ina Garten’s turkey meatloaf, and there isn’t. We enjoyed it thoroughly, but it just didn’t have the magic of my gourmet meatloaf. The reasons I love my meatloaf — the carmelized onions, the balsamic vinegar, the tamari, the two different kinds of meats, the mustard and the fresh basil — were not in The Barefoot Contessa’s meatloaf, so my taste buds were not singing. It was definitely easier to make than mine, but the next time I make meatloaf, I’m back to my old favorite.

Any crock pot recipe that sticks a pinch of saffron into it has some promise. This easy crockpot Moroccan chicken, chick pea and apricot tagine was really special. I only wish I had snapped a shot of it before we inhaled it … it looked so pretty, sprinkled with fresh cilantro and sporting the round chick peas and the sweet brown apricots. The blend of flavors and textures really worked.

Color me disappointed, but La Tartine Gourmande’s coconut and lime macaroons were unsatisfying as a cookie, treat … edible substance. She makes them sound so delicious, irresistible even. As a macaroon lover, I couldn’t wait to try these. Granted, the citrus zip was a wonderful complement to the coconut, but I honestly don’t think her directions were correct. Since I don’t usually make my macaroons with eggs, I just followed her steps. Mine looked nothing like her pictures and the more I think about it, the more I think the egg whites needed to be beaten until fluffy and the rest of the ingredients folded in. I’ll try it that way the next time and if these cookies are worth making, you’ll hear about it.

Eating healthy comes with a price. For many people, that’s a smaller waistline, glowing skin and lots of energy. For me this week, it’s been dessert cravings! I’ve stuck with my tiny serving of grain-sweetened chocolate chips (and a few snitches of the cherry coconut milk ice cream Owen and I made today) but the recipes crossing my path this past week have really been testing my will power.

Seriously, Heidi Swanson, will you cut it out? Your recipe for chocolate cherry brownies just about killed me. As if gooey brownies more like a fallen chocolate cake wouldn’t be enough to send me screaming to the kitchen for my KitchenAid, you have to include port-soaked dried cherries in the recipe? Must. Not. Bake….

Now this recipe for olive oil cake with orange-lavender syrup definitely made me sit up and salivate. I’ve never seen anything like it, I adore cooking with lavender and it’s got marsala, lemon zest and not too much sugar. I’ll be trying this one with all of my usual substitutions: spelt flour, palm sugar or sucanat and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I even love that it’s served with sour cream, which you know I will replace with organic whole milk plain yogurt.

This recipe for Mexican chocolate cake is just weird enough to work. Both gluten-free and vegan, those points alone would sell it for many people. Add in the nutrition of the sweet potato puree and lots of cinnamon and a winner is born.

Just writing this post has packed a few extra pounds on me, so I’m off for a bike ride on this beautiful spring day.

I know it’s not normal to have explored this many Easter desserts, but let me explain. The moms’ group that I belong to did a pre-order bake sale, something we’ve never tried before but was hugely successful. While raising money for a pregnant women’s shelter is very important, I must admit that these dessert recipes definitely got me jazzed.

These are all cookies, bars or one-bite treats which worked really well for our dessert trays, so you won’t find any cakes or pies here. I actually prefer small treats so that I can either watch my calorie intake or try a bunch of them, depending on my mood.

It was very brave of me to make these Italian Easter lemon cookies (I made them egg-shaped), since I’ve never made them before and I had to make about a gazillion dozen — but I did it. They were easy and smelled wonderful, but I have to say since I don’t eat wheat or refined sugar I didn’t actually taste them!

I also did some seven-layer bars, since I thought the shredded coconut would look so pretty on the assortment plate. Then I noticed this recipe for Easter magic cookie bars, which is like the run-of-the-mill seven-layer bar, but with pastel-coated candies (like M&Ms) instead of chocolate and butterscotch chips. Mine will definitely taste better, but wouldn’t these look pretty?

Check out these adorable egg-shaped brownies, with the pretty pastel frosting stripes … love these! You could also just do some square brownies with white frosting and some pastel sprinkles.

Everyone loves rice crispie treats, but these are made with chocolate and shaped like bunnies. Too cute!

Speaking of chocolate, you could make some candy molds in the shape of Easter-y things, and if you use white chocolate, you cold make them pretty colors. But if you want a truly beautiful chocolate Easter cookie, you’ve got to re-create these too-gorgeous-to-eat flowers, bunnies, chicks and eggs.

Some odds and ends:

• mini cupcakes with pastel frosting (maybe carrot cake with cream cheese….)
• lemon squares, with their springy powdered sugar-y yellowness
• traditional sugar cookies decorated in an infinite amount of ways
• Greek Easter cookies … they’ve got brandy and cloves!
• How about some cute little chow mein noodle nests with M&M eggs?
• Vegan peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate and pastel sprinkles
• pastel meringues