Recently I have been mastering the art of dessert-eating- its not a new thing, but somehow I think many of us have lost touch with it. Previously, I made desserts using the most healthy ingredients possible in an attempt to lessen my guilt for eating them. Raw cashew ice cream, quinoa cake, goji berry sweetened whole wheat cookies, etc. While many of these more "health-conscious" recipes were good in a certain way, they didn't usually ever satisfy a deep desire for decadence. In the past it seemed like I was always trying to take dessert out of dessert. In fact, I was famous for making delicious-sounding desserts but forgetting any type of sweetener entirely! Needless to say, those were not much fun.
I have learned, however, that there is another approach. One that I vastly prefer. This approach generally doesn't involve whole-wheat flour or sugar alternatives. Instead of trying to avoid
pure, indulgent, refined white goodness, I actually make it my focus! The secret I've discovered to making this approach actually healthier than the previous model, is that when I leave the healthy ingredients out of the dessert, I also have to leave the guilt out.
If you take away the guilt but keep a recognition that dessert really is a treat, to be enjoyed as such, then you begin to actually appreciate it. Now, when I eat dessert, I really eat dessert!- And I enjoy every single cherished bite.
The entire world, however, has not caught on to the fact that white crack (that's what a friend of mine calls white sugar and flour) really IS where it's at. So while I wait for the world to catch on to a model Europeans provided us with decades ago, I will keep doing my best to come up with desserts that suit as many people's diets as possible (I DO recognize white crack isn't a good idea for everyone, however.)
I was recently looking for a gluten-free cookie recipe that did not involve complex flour substitutions, and I came across a recipe for almond macaroons. For this recipe I combined chocolate, hazelnuts, egg whites, sugar and sea salt- that's it. When my friend Ryan tasted them he said they were very much like the Spanish cookies he loved called "nubes"- chocolate, egg-white leavened "clouds".
These cookies are chewy and very rich- so while they will definitely spike your blood-sugar, you likely will only need to eat one (or maybe two) to feel blissfully satisfied with salty chocolate-ness. Because they are mostly chocolate, the higher the quality of chocolate, the better these will turn out. The salt is a key accent to the chocolate and sugar. They have salt in the batter and they also have coarse salt sprinkled on top. I suggest using a fine sea salt in the batter and a coarse sea salt or Himalayan salt for the top- you might need to crush it a with a mortar and pestle if it's too coarse.
It's easy to over-cook these cookies so I suggest leaning on the side of under-done so they stay chewy and do not get hard.
3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate,
chopped
1 1/2 cups finely chopped hazelnuts (or any other type of nuts)
4 large egg whites, room temperature
1 tablespoon coarse salt-
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, cocoa, and salt. Stir in chocolate and pecans. Add egg whites and stir just until incorporated (do not over-mix).
Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls, 3 inches apart, onto two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until cookie tops are dry and crackled, about 25 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer sheets to wire racks.
Enjoy without guilt but perhaps with milk or tea.
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As a side-note to my lovely devoted readers out there: please excuse the lack of consistency in up-dating these posts- it was due to my previous dinosaur computer, which finally did me the favor of dying, which freed me up to get myself up-to-date technologically. Thank you for your support!
