Tag Archives: chocolate

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on April 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

I know, everyone has a chocolate chip cookie recipe. I keep getting asked how it is I make mine so healthy without sacrificing tasty classic flavour. It really is my go to cookie, I’ve made them quickly before we settle in to watch a movie, takes me less than 5 minutes. I never buy premade cookie dough, you can just freeze this stuff instead. I’ve been told by folks that they like this version far better than anything some puffy commercial icon provides. So, here is my healthy version of that good old classic cookie.

100_2961

  • 1/4 cup brown sugar, not packed
  • 1/2 cup sugar substitute (I like either truvia or splenda, both work nicely)
  • 1/2 cup light butter or light cooking margarine
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 1 prepared serving vegan egg substitute (you can sub an egg but it changes the values, this substitute is fat free and only 15 calories for an egg, wow.)
  • 1 cup nutri-flour (this is a blend of flour and ground wheat bran, great stuff much healthier than white flour and bakes better than whole wheat in these cookies)
  • 4 tbl dark chocolate chips (I use 70% when I can find them but 50% works great too, if you can find mini chips, Do IT! the coverage is great for so little)
  1. Cream together sugar, margarine.
  2. Add salt, baking powder, extracts and egg substitute. Combine until light and fluffy.
  3. Fold in nutri-flour.
  4. Add chocolate chips.
  5. Measure out the dough using a tsp. You can either drop them on the sheet or roll the dough out in your palms and pat to form a small disk. Depends on the look you are going for.
  6. Bake 350F for 10 minutes.

Makes 24 cookies. Each cookie contains 52 calories, 2.8 grams fat, 7.6 grams carbs, .7 gram fibre, .8 gram protein.

Leave a comment

Posted in Comfort Foods, Craving Buster, Dessert

Tagged

Frozen Yogurt Cake

Posted on July 13, 2011 | 2 comments

I made this for my husband’s birthday. You can get all sorts of ice cream cakes out there, they are indeed nummy but the nutritional info on them is…less than nummy. Some places make a frozen yogurt cake such as Ben and Jerry’s but the one around here closed a year or so ago. So, getting a lower fat style of frozen cake was looking like a no go. This has never stopped me before! Time to figure out how to make one. Surprisingly, not very hard. Once I figured out what I wanted in the cake it was just a matter of assembly. I know that we love the fudgy layer in those cakes, the cookie crust, and overall creaminess. A little culinary architecture and tada! A tower of num. My husband loves his mocha so for this one I went with a chocolate and coffee style of cake. Go with your favourites and change it up! Soon you too can have your own customized frozen cake dessert.

  • 12 reduced fat oreo cookies
  • 1 tbl cold coffee
  • 7 scoops vanilla low fat frozen yogurt
  • 7 scoops cappuccino low fat frozen yogurt
  • 1/2 cup fat free dark chocolate sauce
  • plastic wrap
  • 8″ springform pan
  1. Line a springform pan with 2 sheets of plastic wrap that hang about 6 inches over the sides. Drap one sheet and then drape the other crosswise.
  2. Crush the oreo cookies, cookies and filling together. Add the coffee. Press the mixture into the pan (on top of the plastic wrap you used to line it)
  3. Once the crust is down begin scooping the vanilla frozen yogurt on top of the crust. Then, using a spoon smooth out the frozen yogurt to create a seamless layer.
  4. Top with the fudge sauce, then scoop the mocha frozen yogurt on top. Use a spoon to smooth the layer as before but more carefully to prevent the sauce from moving around too much.
  5. Optional: Top with some extra chocolate sauce to add words or a picture.
  6. Cover with the overhanging plastic wrap and foil for extra protection. Freeze for atleast 4 hours or overnight. To serve take out of the freezer and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Unwrap and spring the pan off. Heat knife under hot water and slice.
  7. We sliced ours into 16 pieces. They are tall and ever so decadent. Enjoy!

Serves 16. Yes, That is a 16th of the cake! Nutritional information totally depends on the brands you choose for yourself. Although with this one you can rest a bit easier knowing that this cake is certainly not as bad for you as most of those ice cream cakes out there.

2 Comments

Posted in Comfort Foods, Craving Buster, Dessert

Tagged , ,

Chocolate Mini Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Posted on April 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Oh that classic peanut butter and chocolate pairing. It calls to us like a siren in the night…the day…after dinner…ok she’s always there. Stupid stalking craving siren. Now, I’m not going to be strapping myself to the mast of a ship anytime soon (oh yay, I knew that classics degree would come in handy eventually). It’s time to look this siren in the face and get the flock out of here (see? See what I did there? Yyyeah. *proud*). Cupcakes are so trendy right now, I’m simply not willing to spend so much on something I can make at home and healthier too! Have you seen the prices on these things? Pfft. Maybe on the go the temptation may be greater but right now these are much better and easy! They are just as cute too. I couldn’t find my awesome frosting tips at the time. This was done with a plastic baggie with the corner snipped off. This recipe is similar to my mexican brownies just slight differences and ofcourse a much smaller pan.

  • 3/4 cup flour (whole wheat can work here too!)
  • 1 1/2 tbl brown sugar
  • 3 tbl unsweetened cocoa
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tsp light cooking margarine
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup fat free cool whip, defrosted
  • 1 tbl whipped peanut butter
  1. Combine the flour, brown sugar, cocoa, and baking soda in a bowl. In a second bowl combine the water, applesauce, vinegar, margarine, and vanilla. Pour the wet mix into the dry and stir until the batter is smooth.
  2. Fill each cup in a 12 count mini muffin tin about half full. Bake at 350F for 13-15 minutes. Cool.
  3. Combine the defrosted cool whip and peanut butter in a bowl. Fill a frosting bag or even a small plastic baggy with the end snipped off. Frost the cupcake mini’s when they have cooled completely. Serve.

Makes 28 mini cupcakes. Each serving contains 22 calories, .4 gram of fat, 4.2 carbs, .3 gram of fiber (based on regular flour), and .6 gram of protein. They look so adorable when brought out on a tray to serve to folks or even for just a night in with something special. I found that this recipe makes more frosting than I actually used. So, you can go really nuts with these things just like the ones you see in the shops. Another fun idea is to cut those bites in half and fill them with the frosting to create a whoopie pie style cupcake. Num!

Leave a comment

Posted in Comfort Foods, Craving Buster, Dessert, Snack

Tagged , ,

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Shortbread

Posted on February 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Dark chocolate and some sort of red fruit such as cherries or strawberries always seems to do the trick when it comes to valentines day. Instead of doing the same old when it comes to this treat I figured I would do something special and offer a buttery and decadent seeming shortbread. The chocolate and cherries in this are delicious! If you can’t find dried cherries then dried cranberries flavoured with cherry will do just fine. I know that I certainly won’t kick my husband out of bed for eating shortbread.

  • 1 cup flour (I used nutri flour, an enhanced flour with whole wheat nutrition)
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup light butter
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup icing sugar or spelnda
  • 1/3 cup dried cherries
  • 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
  1. Prepare a pan by spraying it. I baked this in a stoneware pan and I highly recommend this for shortbread, if you don’t have one go for glass.
  2. Combine the flour, cornstarch and salt.
  3. In another bowl cream the butter, icing sugar (or splenda), and vanilla. Add the flour mixture a bit at a time. Add the cherries and chocolate.
  4. Pat evenly into your pan and prick surface with a fork. Bake at 300F for 30-40 minutes. The shortbread should have a golden colour around the edges. Allow to cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Remove from the pan and slice.

Makes 8 large wedges. Each wedge contains 185 calories, 7.8 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. Ofcourse you can always cut into much smaller pieces for a more modest indulgence but for the holiday why not indulge a little. If making this in a square pan to share you can easily get 16 portions at 92 calories, 3.9 grams of fat and .5 gram of fibre as well. This is calculated using icing sugar, I used splenda in my latest batch which was nummy! This made the original 8 servings more like 165 calories, 7.8 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. Not bad at all for a lovely shortbread treat.

Leave a comment

Posted in Dessert

Tagged ,

Chocolate Banana Pudding Pie

Posted on January 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

My dessert pie for national pie day. I was inspired a bit by Develyndeskyes response to my twitter. She had suggested a chocolate silk pie…so while I was thinking about chocolate silk in my kitchen some bananas caught my eye. Ha! Get some fruit in there make it tasty and healthy. This is a gooey pie simply because that is what I wanted, a pudding pie. If you want a firmer pie you can always fold in some fat free cool whip or something. It does hold shape somewhat but not much. Just messy good times.

  • 1 1/2 cup skim milk
  • 1 pkg fat free chocolate pudding
  • 2 bananas
  • 8 almond cookies, crushed
  • 1 tbl margarine melted
  1. Combine the cookies and margarine. Press into the bottom of a pie plate to cover the bottom.
  2. Whisk together chocolate pudding mix and 1 cup of skim milk until it begins to thicken usually about 3 minutes.
  3. Puree 1 banana and 1/2 cup of milk. Add the puree to the pudding.
  4. Cut the remaining banana into slices, break apart the slices where the banana naturally segments. Usually into three pieces per slice.
  5. Stir the banana chunks into the pudding carefully.
  6. Pour the pudding mixture over the pie crust and refrigerate atleast 4 hours or overnight.

Serves 8. Each serving contains 124 calories, 1.6 grams of fat and 1.2 grams of fibre. This tasty pie sure didn’t last long in our fridge!

Leave a comment

Posted in Dessert

Tagged , , ,

Chocolate Fudge

Posted on January 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Thought you had to give up the chocolaty goodness of fudge this year to help reach your goals? Hah! The beauty of this recipe is that it starts as an easy to make simple chocolate fudge. To make it your own you just start adding variations. You like your fudge to have bits of fruit or nuts in it? Add them in at the end. Want a different flavour with your chocolate? Play with extracts. Want that sweet and salty fun? Top it with some flaked sea salt before serving. You see the kind of fun you can have? I’m thinking of serving some of this with some cherries mixed before refrigeration for valentine’s day. Mmmmm.

  • 300 ml low fat sweetened condensed milk
  • 285 grams extra dark chocolate, chopped up
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  1. Spray and line a 9 inch baking pan with plastic wrap, allow a few inches of plastic wrap to hang over the two edges of the pan.
  2. Pour the condensed milk, vanilla, and chocolate into a saucepan. Stir and cook over medium-low heat until the chocolate melts and everything becomes smooth. Watch this process carefully, you don’t want to ruin a good pan or fudge.
  3. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Allow to cool, pull the overhang over to cover your fudge lightly. Refrigerate overnight.
  4. The next day, uncover your fudge, remove the block from the pan using the over hangs as handles. Place upside down on a cutting board and remove the plastic wrap. Cut 5 strips horizontally and 9 strips vertically. I like mine to be more like strips of fudge rather than squares. Stack on a serving plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 45 slices of fudge. Each serving contains 65 calories, 3 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. Delicious! Careful, these are easy to overindulge in if they are sitting in front of you minding their own business. Poor unsuspecting fudge.  I suggest only taking out what you know you can have and forgetting about the rest. This keeps in the fridge for a couple weeks so it’s easy to do and keep on hand as an extra special treat.

Leave a comment

Posted in Comfort Foods, Craving Buster, Dessert, Snack

Tagged ,

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

Posted on December 31, 2010 | 1 comment

Yes…I sang that song that Chef from South Park sings while making these. Goodtimes, granted these aren’t salty. I learned a version of this recipe from a lovely lady my parents knew back when I was a kid. So yes, they are so easy even a kid can make them. Assuming like my parents you trust said kid around the stove….or have no choice since the kid made them when you went out. Ha. Oh yes, it has been a confection filled winter’s night at the hungry hobbit household this year.

  • 1/2 cup light peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup pitted dates
  • 2 tbl icing sugar
  • 1/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped
  1. Combine grind the dates in a blender until broken into really small bits. Add the peanut butter and icing sugar. Blend until fairly smooth.
  2. Using a tbl measure out the amount for each ball. Form the mixture into balls, place on a plastic wrap covered sheet and place in the freezer to firm up. Atleast 2 hours.
  3. Melt the chocolate using the method from the tortoises recipe. Cover each ball in chocolate and return them to the plastic covered sheet. Allow to cool, serve or keep in a sealed container for later.

Makes 12 chocolate not so salty balls. Each ball contains 75 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, and 1 gram of fibre.

Enjoy, and have a happy new year everyone!

Next week I will weigh in and see if any damage from the holidays has been done. The goal was to maintain but enjoy over the holidays. So, I figured with tasty but healthy treats like these and using proper judgment maintenance should be achieved. Stay tuned! I’ll be stepping on the scale just like everyone at the end of this weekend.

1 Comment

Posted in Dessert, Snack

Tagged , , ,

Tortoises

Posted on December 27, 2010 | 4 comments

I’m skipping this weeks hardcore hobbit to dedicate this week to tasty treat updates. Today is my attempt at faking turtles.These tasty chocolates were all the rage this yule. In fact my husband claimed he liked the dates much more than the caramel because it gave the treat more of a full flavour rather than just a hurray for sugar flavour. Not that there is anything wrong with a little hurray for sugar…you just can’t eat as much of it is all. These were tasty I think I’m going to make another round of them for new year’s eve too. I have found that coating things in chocolate is much easier than I thought. Hurray for chocolate! I couldn’t help myself…I took a bite.

  • 12 dates
  • 12 pecan halves (or any other nut you prefer)
  • 1/4 cup melting chocolate (I used dark chocolate)
  1. Remove the pit from each date, insert the pecan half into each date. If your dates are pre-pitted and you can’t find the hole just cut a slit into the date and slip it in that way. You should end up with something that looks like this:
  2. Fill a pot halfway with water and place a glass heat resistant bowl on top. Bring the water to a simmer over medium. Pour the chocolate into the glass bowl and stir while it begins to melt. Your setup should look something like this:
  3. Cover a plate or tray with plastic wrap and set aside. This is your landing pad for yummyness.
  4. Coat each date separately using a couple of forks to gently push the date around and move it to your tray to cool.
  5. Allow to cool completely before placing in a container to store. Can be kept at room temperature or in the fridge. Keeping them in the fridge though makes them a bit more challenging to eat.

Makes 12 nummy chocolates. Each chocolate is 51 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 1 gram of fibre. A tasty treat for any hobbit on holiday.

4 Comments

Posted in Dessert, Snack

Tagged , , ,

Chocolate Coconut Madelines

Posted on November 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

Oh so pretty and light. Madelines are lovely french cookies that are excellent with a bit of tea. Maybe you would enjoy them much like Proust did, dipped in your tea? Or maybe you will devour a bunch of them knowing how nearly guilt free these little delights are. I’ve done both…and it really is good times all around. I’ve been told this recipe is gluten free so extra hurray! I hunted everywhere for a madeline pan, afterall they do need to have that cute little shell look to be just right. I eventually found them in a specialty cooking store in Nanaimo. Nanaimo you help make so many dessert dreams come true. *snuzzles* oh and a big high five for those bars. Those are another story though.

  • 1/2 cup egg white (I use the carton stuff for this)
  • 1/4 cup icing sugar
  • 2 tbl melted light butter
  • 1 tsp coconut liqueur or rum
  • 1 tsp sweetened coconut
  • 1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder, unsweetened
  • 3 tbl coconut flour
  1. Spray 12 madeline shells. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. Whisk the egg whites until they are frothy. Whisk in the sugar, butter, and coconut alcohol.
  3. Add the flour, coconut, and cocoa.
  4. Spoon 1 tbl of batter into each shell.
  5. Bake until solid and cooked, should be a bit spongy, about 11-13 minutes. Cool in the mold for about 1 minute and then remove.

Makes 12 cookies. Each cookie contains 29 calories, 1.3 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. These are great with a little glaze brushed on the tops like the ones I took the picture of. That glaze was just a bit of icing sugar mixed with a teaspoon of milk, then brushed on. Very delicious. For those doing weight watchers yes one cookie is about 0 point. Three cookies though is 1 point…total. That is pretty awesome.

Leave a comment

Posted in Dessert

Tagged , ,

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on October 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s definitely been a cookies kind of week. I put these together using some leftover pumpkin from a batch of pumpkin cheesecake muffins. Can’t let good pumpkin go to waste now can we? I love fall cooking. Yes, I have justified having one with my breakfast on occasion simply because of its pumpkin content…don’t judge me monkey.

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, unpacked
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tbl pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 cup pumpkin (canned or cooked, not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 1/2 cup applesauce (if you make it with my hardcore hobbit applesauce this become even more numly!)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
  1. Combine the sugar, applesauce, and vanilla until well mixed. Stir in the pumpkin.
  2. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spice.
  3. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  4. Using a teaspoon drop the mix unto a baking sheet.
  5. Bake at 350F for 20-22 minutes.

Makes 46 cookies. Each cookie contains 34 calories, .4 grams of fat, and .4 grams of fibre. These are such a light and cake-like cookie. Pumpkin and chocolate were made to go together!

Leave a comment

Posted in Dessert, Snack

Tagged , , ,