Fit Fare

I was excited to walk into my local library and spy a copy of Perfect Light Desserts: Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving by Nick Malgieri (author of the popular How to Bake) and David Joachim right on the shelf. Published in October 2006 by HarperCollins, it is dedicated to “everyone who enjoys dessert…but doesn’t enjoy dieting” which seemed perfect for me.

As I flipped through the book I grew even more impressed: recipes for custards, cakes, pies, sorbets, ices and tarts abound. The pictures are beautiful and the recipes are inventive: Mary’s Cappuccino Brûlé is a coffee flavored dessert made in coffee cups and topped with browned meringue to simulate foam. None of the recipes scream “diet”. Many recipes look just like their full fat, high calorie cousins but have easy substitutions like using low fat milk instead of whole, half and half instead of heavy cream and lots of egg whites. Most of the flavor comes from using high quality chocolate, fruit and spices. All of the recipes include the calories, fat, percent of calories from fat, sodium, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, and cholesterol levels per serving for each recipe. 

Is it really possible to make decadent looking chocolate cupcakes with brown sugar icing with under 300 calories? It is indeed! The cupcake recipe honestly doesn’t look low calorie at all; it used full eggs, sour cream and 4 oz of unsweetened chocolate. Most of the calorie cutting came from the icing. Rather than a butter base, it was basically whipped egg whites and sugar. This was one of my favorite recipe in the book because not only did it not taste like “diet food” it was also one of the easiest to judge portion size- each cupcake is a single serving size of 280 calories. 

Oddly, several of the cake, pie, pudding and tart recipes information did not give terribly exact serving size information. Even just a slightly larger serving than what was intended could easily ratchet up the calorie and fat count. The fact that the majority of the recipes, while they included detailed nutritional information have slightly vague serving sizes of “about 12” or “8 generous servings” that are slightly puzzling-what is “generous” exactly? It isn’t difficult to immediately cut a cake into 12 slices before serving  but I had trouble dividing the sherbet out in the exact serving sizes, we were not serving it immediately to 10 people so we had to guess what one tenth of the total amount would look like. Perhaps if the nutritional breakdown had been by ½ cup it would have been easier.  The cookie recipes are very clear on what size the cookie should be and give a per cookie nutritional breakdown. 

What the book lacks in exactness in that regard, it makes up in very detailed lists of ingredient descriptions, equipment suggestions and very clear directions for each recipe. Nothing is out of touch with the home cook’s kitchen. Most of the baked goods involve simple ingredients and are baked in Pyrex dishes. This isn’t to say the desserts are unimpressive, they are. Chocolate truffles, pavlovas, raspberry tarts, strawberry souffles, panna cotta, curried mango with ginger ice milk, and gelato are featured right along old favorites like pumpkin pie and chocolate chip cookies. 

Many of the desserts get their intense favor from fruit and Malgieri thoughtfully provides lists of which fruits are at their peak at a given month and how to prepare and store them. He includes nutritional information that shows that ripe, inseason fruit is better for you than out of season fruit.

So, if you have a need for a low calorie dessert, chances you will find what you are looking for in Perfect Light Desserts: Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving . It is a great source for healthier desserts that taste just like “regular” treats.