Posts tagged Desserts
Low Sugar Energy Cookies
Low Sugar Energy Cookies

How to Make High Energy, Low Sugar Cookies: Perfect for packing in a lunch

I don't know about you, but now, only a month into the school year, I've completely lost all the steam I had the first couple weeks of school trying to make healthy, unique lunches everyday.  I started out the school year like super mom baking cookies and crackers and creating school lunch bento box works of art and now I'm like; here's some cheddar bunnies, a box of raisins and some apple slices, lunch is served...

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Katie MilesHealthy, Toddler Food, Cookies, DessertsComment
Honey Cake with Banana Cream, Dark Chocolate and Almonds / No Refined Sugar
Honey Cake with Banana Cream, Dark Chocolate and Almonds / No Refined Sugar

Recipe for Honey Cake with Banana Cream, Dark Chocolate and Almonds

This honey cake with banana cream and dark chocolate drizzled all over it has been dancing around in my head for months.  I've been measuring cups of honey and pureeing bananas in my sleep trying to come up with just the right ratio of sweetness.  I finally decided to give it a try this past weekend because I wanted to take my best friend, Emily, a cake to celebrate the birth of her new baby girl.  It also happened to be my birthday weekend, so I made some extra cakes and cream and my husband and daughter built a beautifully wonky tribute of cake for my birthday celebration.  All the cakes, perfectly sculpted and otherwise, tasted amazing.  

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Katie MilesRefined Sugar Free, Healthy, Desserts, CakesComment
Vanilla Honey Cupcakes, Refined Sugar Free
Vanilla Honey Cupcakes, Refined Sugar Free

Recipe for Refined Sugar Free Vanilla Honey Cupcakes

Honey powder!  WHO KNEW?!  I saw this cool stuff called honey powder last time I was at Whole Foods, and though it was stupid expensive (Whole Foods ain't cheap!), I had to buy it because I just knew I could do something really cool with it.  I pondered the honey powder until I came up with the perfect use:  Honey vanilla buttercream frosting!  The cupcake batter for these scrumptious vanilla honey cupcakes is super easy to make and comes out really soft and buttery despite the lack of refined sugar.  So that problem was solved pretty easily.  But how do you make honey buttercream frosting without sugar and not end up with a sticky, gooey mess?  I'll tell you!  Just use honey powder which you can buy for a whole lot cheaper than Whole Foods online here.  Substitute the honey powder for the powdered sugar, add a little raw honey and, viola, delicious honey vanilla buttercream frosting!  I'm taking these cupcakes to a toddler Valentine's Day party this afternoon.   Now the toddlers can have their sugar induced tantrum free cupcakes and eat them too!

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Katie MilesRefined Sugar Free, Toddler Food, Desserts, Cupcakes, Valentine's Day, Healthy Comments
Chocolate Peanut Butter Treat Bars // Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Caffeine Free
Chocolate Peanut Butter Treat Bars // Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Caffeine Free

I'm a snacker.  Around 2pm I start raiding the pantry for a tasty treat to nibble on.  Yes, I know I should grab a banana or an apple or some carrot sticks.  But, I still have the mentality of a 7 year old most of the time and "I don't wanna!  Nah nah nah!"  I want something sweet and savory, crunchy and filling to eat.  So I feel like I'm making a healthy compromise between nature's whole foods and a Snickers bar with these chocolate peanut butter bars.  Plus they are so handy dandy to throw in your purse or diaper bag for an energy boosting fix.  With ground flax seed, chopped nuts, puffed rice and no refined sugar, they are healthy enough to pass as an energy bar.  But, the raw honey and peanut butter and carob chips will satisfy those inevitable sweet cravings.  Make some up today and put them in your children's lunches or stash a few in your desk and keep the evil candy bars at bay.

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Katie MilesHealthy, Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Desserts, Toddler FoodComment
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe // Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Caffeine Free
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe // Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Caffeine Free

These cookies may look healthy, but they taste oh so sinful.  They are plenty sweet with the coconut sugar and maple sugar and the chocolate taste is perfection.  My husband is a major carob cynic and he could not believe how good they tasted.  When cooking gluten free, it is really important to add something to the flours to help with the binding process.  Gluten does all of the binding in wheat flour baking.  I added xanthan gum to help bind these cookies, but if you can't find it or don't want to make an extra trip to the store, you can use corn starch instead.  You should be able to find all of the ingredients I've listed at health food store or Whole Foods.  If you don't live near a good health food store you can also order all of the harder to find ingredients online.

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Katie MilesCookies, Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Toddler Food, Healthy, DessertsComment
Painted Gingerbread Cookies, Fun to do with Kids
Painted Gingerbread Cookies, Fun to do with Kids

I really wanted to make sugar cookies with Ruby this year and let her use sprinkles, red hots and those weird silver BB-looking things to decorate them when they came out the oven.  But then I picture the mess.  Sticky red and green sprinkles and silver BB's undigested in Ruby's poop.  No thanks.  So I came up with a fun way for her to decorate cookies and still maintain my sanity.  These gingerbread men covered in white icing are the perfect substrate for a toddler's natural artistic skills.  Set out the red and green icing bowls and unleash your toddler's artistic abilities.

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Katie MilesToddler Food, Cookies, Christmas/ Holiday, DessertsComment
Orange Cardamom Pizzelle Recipe
Orange Cardamom Pizzelle Recipe

Cardamom is one of my favorite spices.  The aromatic quality of cardamom just gets my senses all excited for fall, warm cookies and chai tea.  And these Orange Cardamom Pizzelles would be the perfect accompaniment to a steaming hot cup of Chai Tea Latte. Cook up a batch of these cookies and serve with tea on a cool crisp autumn day and you've got yourself a recipe for cozy!

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Katie MilesCookies, Desserts, Fall Comments
Baby Shower Strawberry Cupcakes
Baby Shower Strawberry Cupcakes

It's nice to be called upon to make something for a party because it allows me to flex my creative muscles and come up with a recipe I ordinarily might not think of without some prompting.  My friends had a baby shower this past weekend and asked me to bring a desert.   After scouring Pinterest for "baby shower themed cupcakes" and only coming up with gross cupcake recipes with yucky fondant sculptures of babies on top, I decided to create my own recipe.  These cute little cupcakes are made with real strawberries in the batter and delicious buttercream frosting.  I purchased the ducks at a candy store in my neighborhood, but you can purchase them online here.

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Katie MilesCupcakes, Desserts, Baby ShowerComment
Peach Basil and Blueberry Chambord Adult Popsicles
Peach Basil and Blueberry Chambord Adult Popsicles


Popsicles were a staple of my summer growing up.  Summer just wouldn't be summer without them.  They go hand in hand with slip-in-slides, chigger bites, tree houses and all day bicycle excursions.  Usually my parents would buy us a box or two of some off-brand, chemically flavored, two stick popsicles, but when those ran out, it was up to my brother and I to get creative.  Mom had an old Tupperware popsicle mold from the 60's that we used to make our own lemonade/ kool-aide/ orange juice popsicles.  Little did I know that these early experimentations in popsicle artistry would someday inform the art of adult gourmet popsicles making.  These popsicles are pretty simple to throw together and you can create just about any iteration that inspires you.  I brought these popsicles with me to a dinner party and handed them out after dinner for desert, but you could hand them out before dinner on a hot summer night for a fun twist on the summer cocktail.

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Katie MilesCocktails, Desserts, SummerComment
Whole Wheat Cinnamon and Spice Pizzelles
Whole Wheat Cinnamon and Spice Pizzelles

Pizzelles are a delicate round cookie that originated in Italy.  My grandparents immigrated from Italy and brought the traditional pizzelle cookie with them.  My mother has always had a pizzelle iron and has been making them since I was a kid, but they weren't always my favorite cookie as a child because they don't have a lot of sugar in them and are traditionally made with Anise.  As an adult, I LOVE them.  They are the perfect cookie to leisurely dunk in an after dinner coffee.  This year I'm hosting Christmas at my home.   As I was going over the cookie menu with my mom, I realized that I couldn't make pizzelles because I don't have an iron.  Two days later a Cuisinart Pizzelle Iron showed up on my doorstep in an Amazon box.  Mom's are so great, aren't they?  I couldn't wait to crack that sucker open and get started on some imaginative pizzelle recipes.  I made these whole wheat pizzelles for my daughter, and despite the healthy ingredients, they did turn out rather tasty.  But I'm not going to stop with this first batch of pizzelles because I've got visions of pizzelles recipes dancing in my head.  Roll them up and make cannolis?  Ice cream cups?  Orange cardamom pizzelles?  The possibilities are endless!

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Katie MilesDesserts, Healthy, CookiesComment
Peach and Tart Cherry Crisp
Peach and Tart Cherry Crisp

On our way to the farm stand before our Saturday night dinner, we agreed that fruit crisp is a far superior dessert to fruit cobbler.  With cobbler, you have too much cake that doesn't really complement the fruit.  With a crisp the fruit is the star, with a crispy cinnamon and oat topping that plays off the soft fruit.  After congratulating ourselves on sharing a similar (and no doubt correct) opinion about cobbler vs. crisp, we settled on sour cherry and peach for our dessert.  The farm stand had beautiful cherries and peaches that looked pretty good, but turned out to be only OK.  No problem though, with fruit desserts, sometimes adding a big of sugar and baking can bring life to a piece of fruit that you wouldn't want to eat raw.  The crisp turned out beautifully!  We served it with some vanilla ice cream - a classic combination that nobody can resist.  Try this crisp recipe this summer.  Choose any fruit combo that sounds good to you - but definitely consider peaches and sour cherries, they are a hot item. 

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Katie MilesDesserts, Summer Comment
Strawberry Lemon Shortcake
Strawberry Lemon Shortcake

Strawberries are definitely, hands down, my favorite fruit.  As a child of the 80's, I loved the Strawberry Shortcake character.  One my favorite pastimes as a child was going strawberry picking with my family (though it always resulted in spending countless hours in the kitchen cleaning and cutting strawberries for freezing--not so much fun).  If there is a pile of hard candy or lolly pops, I will always fish out the strawberry flavored ones.  I even love strawberry printed fabrics and strawberry adorned clothing.  So, when it is strawberry season, I tend to go a little overboard with the strawberry themed foods.  I hope you don't mind.  Here is a recipe for a strawberry lemon shortcake that I've been making for many years.  Enjoy!

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Katie MilesDesserts, SummerComment
Low Sugar Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Low Sugar Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I've been looking for a way to get my picky one and half year old to eat a healthy breakfast that isn't limited to cheerios and apple juice.  She likes oatmeal but god forbid you try and take away an iota of autonomy from her by *gasp* spoon feeding it to her.  I have tried baking some of the oatmeal breakfast bars for babies I've seen online, but they are bit too crumbly and mushy and the taste is rather bland.  Cookies are pretty much a sure fire way to get any kid to eat so I came up with these low sugar oatmeal raisin cookies that look and taste like the real thing but are actually just a bowl of oatmeal dressed up in a cute little cookie outfit.  Even my cookie monster couldn't tell the difference and we had a very peaceful breakfast this morning sans the force feeding, screaming and food throwing.

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Katie MilesDesserts, Healthy, Cookies, Toddler FoodComment
Salty Caramel and Dark Chocolate Bird's Nests
Salty Caramel and Dark Chocolate Bird's Nests

Recipe for Salty Caramel and Dark Chocolate Bird's Nests

This Easter I invited some of my mommy friends and their families over for an Easter dinner and all-out toddler insane-fest.  To really get the toddler blood pumping so they could do the best possible job of destroying my apartment, I made a decadent desert with pretzels, dark chocolate, caramel and Jordan almonds.  Once the sugar had mainlined in their little bodies we kept it going by doing an egg hunt with plastic eggs filled with Fruit Loops.  By the way, if your looking for the perfect snack that is colorful and sticky to have ground into your floors and carpets, Fruit Loops is it.  The adults enjoyed bloody mary's, and whiskey and we all enjoyed the amazing potluck dishes that my friends brought over.  Blue cheese biscuits, asparagus ragu, mac and cheese and a delicious ham were all on the menu followed by an Eastery treat of Bird's Nests.  A super fun day for my husband and I and especially memorable Easter for Ruby.

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Katie MilesDesserts, EasterComment
Caramel Fondue
Caramel Fondue

Emily and I had a super funny but also somewhat scary time making caramel together during our fondue party.  Any time you make a sugar recipe, you have to exercise extreme caution, as even the tiniest bit of liquid sugar on your skin can cause a serious burn.  While we carefully made this caramel fondue, we couldn't stop laughing (it doesn't take much), since working with sugar is pretty unpredictable.  You start with a very small amount of water to the amount of sugar used, so at first it didn't seem like the sugar would dissolve in the water.  It finally did melt down and we started to swirl the molten sugar, waiting for it to start to turn golden brown (carmel is just slightly burnt sugar).  We got impatient and maybe swirled a bit too vigorously - at this point the sugar turned to what looks like pebbles.  What probably happened was that the water from the sides of the pan mixed with the molten sugar and cooled it down, this made it seize up.  We pushed through, however, adding a tiny bit of the cream to re-melt the sugar.  As we continued to stir, the sugar finally started to brown and we thought we were in the clear.  "It's working!" we cackled as the caramel took shape.  We were literally screaming with excitement.  "It's working!!!"  We then added the remaining cream (carefully as advised) and the cream started boiling up and the caramel turned into a big blob in the liquid!  Alas, we hadn't been in the clear after all.  A big drip of sugar fell to the floor, but we kept whisking away.  Surely enough, the blob dissolved again and we were left with a silky and DELICIOUS caramel.  We were mad scientists who finally came up with a beautiful creation and we were so proud.  Adding in the tiny seeds from the vanilla beans, we were relieved to see that there were to be no further twists in the plot.  We poured the caramel fondue into a fondue pot and served it to our guests with hand-dipped chocolate covered pretzel rods, green apples, chocolate covered marshmallows, chocolate truffles, homemade pound cake, and sea salt and walnuts for coating.  It was worth risking life and limb - SO delightful.  We ate it all.  With our guests, of course.  

 

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Katie MilesDesserts, WinterComment
Pumpkin and Maple Scones with a Molasses Glaze
Pumpkin and Maple Scones with a Molasses Glaze

Well, it's still colder than a witch's titty in brass bra (according to my husband) outside and I'm getting a little tired of being cooped up indoors all the time.  I did venture outside on Saturday with my husband and daughter for some sledding and a hike in the woods.  And, though it was nice to get some fresh air and say hello to the trees, I could only stand to be out there for about an hour.  After we came back in and got the fire going I was ready for a warm wintery baked good to nibble on.  This recipe was concocted from the ingredients I had in my cupboard because I was too lazy to drive to the store.  Still, they are some of the best scones I've ever eaten.  My husband and daughter loved them so much that they were gone by the end of the day and I had to exclaim that a delicious baked good is here today, but scone tomorrow ; )    

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Katie MilesDesserts, Breakfast, Toddler Food, FallComment