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Healthy Christmas Dessert Recipes
Featured Recipes
Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
This rustic cake is a delicious alternative to pie and uses one of the tastiest fruits of the fall harvest—cranberries. The basic recipe is very versatile and can be made with apples, pears, peaches, plums or any full-flavored, slightly acidic fruit. Just arrange the fruit in the skillet before you pour the batter over it. The cake is best served warm; if you can, put it in the oven just before you sit down to dinner. (Recipe adapted from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.)
Vanilla-Pomegranate Parfaits
Rich, creamy, vanilla bean-flecked pudding tempers the tart-sweet pomegranate compote. Pick out small, festive glass dessert dishes for this pretty parfait.
Chocolate Decadence
Inspired by the (now) old-school, ultra-rich, mousselike chocolate cake that usually called for a whole pound of chocolate, half a dozen eggs and lots of butter, here is an enlightened rendition with deep bittersweet chocolate flavor and that dense melt-in-your-mouth texture so characteristic of the genre. No one will guess it’s healthier. The secret is excellent natural cocoa powder and good-quality bittersweet chocolate, preferably with 70% cacao. Although the cake can be eaten once it’s completely cool, it comes out of the pan much easier and even tastes better if it has been chilled at least overnight.
Mocha Yule Log
A bûche de Noël—a cake decorated like a yule log—is a traditional dessert served around Christmastime in France, Belgium, Canada and some other French-speaking countries. Some bûche de Noël cakes can be as heavy as a real log when they are decked out with sugar and buttercream. Our recipe, which is just as tasty served cold as it is at room temperature, is lighter than air. The chocolate brown-butter génoise cake made with whole-grain flour is easy to roll up and it’s covered with a billowy espresso-spiked 7-minute frosting. We’ve substituted agave nectar for white sugar in the frosting. It’s pretty garnished with meringue mushrooms and sugared rosemary.
Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap-Walnut Crust
We pulled out a few of our favorite EatingWell tricks to achieve plenty of creaminess in our pumpkin cheesecake without all the saturated fat of a typical recipe: nutrient-packed canned pumpkin and pureed nonfat cottage cheese replace some of the cream cheese. A touch of pumpkin pie spice warms up the flavor. For the crust, shop the natural-foods section for gingersnaps without any hydrogenated oil. Simple toasted walnuts are an elegant garnish. Or try making candied walnuts. Just be careful not to eat all of them before they make it to the cake!
Cranberry Coconut Trifle
No other dessert turns heads like a trifle. Festive in every way, this trifle recipe glows from within with scarlet layers of juicy cranberries. The filling is made from an astounding 6 cups of antioxidant-packed cranberries! We made the custard “skinny” with a combination of low-fat milk and light coconut milk. From-scratch brown-butter sponge cake, made with whole-wheat pastry flour, stands in for store-bought ladyfingers.
Peppermint Pattie Pots de Crème
We love York peppermint patties and the flavor of these festive pots de crème is a dead ringer for the candy. Unlike traditional über-rich custard recipes, this custard uses low-fat milk, only 3 egg yolks and 1/2 cup of half-and-half for its creamy richness. Just 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract in the custard gives plenty of minty flavor, but if you want that icy mountain-breeze sensation, add a whole teaspoon instead.
Delicious and healthy Christmas dessert recipes to enjoy throughout the holiday season.
Impress your guests with one of our delicious and healthy Christmas dessert recipes. From Christmas cookie recipes to Christmas cake recipes, our healthy Christmas dessert recipes are perfect for a festive occasion. Enjoy our Christmas cookie recipes at your annual cookie swap or our Christmas cheesecake recipes for a sweet ending to your festive occasion. You can feel good about celebrating the holidays with our healthier Christmas dessert recipes.
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Healthy Christmas Cookie Recipes
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Healthy Christmas Dessert Recipes for Pies & Tarts
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