Healthy Desserts: 6 Wholesome Holiday Recipes (PHOTOS, RECIPES)

The Wholesome Junk Food Cookbook is a collection of decadent desserts with a few ingredient changes to make the treats healthier for you. If you want to bake from this cookbook for the holidays, enjoy the six recipes below...or call a local Borders, Barnes and Noble or Whole Foods to see if they have any copies left. In addition to having great recipes for you and family for Christmas, it is also a wonderful hoiday gift for chocolate lover and moms. For those of you who love technology, it is also available as an ebook.

Here are some holiday eating myths:

1. Everyone gains weight during the holidays.
False (Truth: You don't have to. Add a few more minutes to your exercise routine practice portion control, and enjoy wholesome treats, like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.)

2. Holiday foods are all fattening.
False (Truth: Healthy fats help to fill you up and give that full feeling. Eaten in moderation, turkey, sweet potatoes, etc are healthy. Try pumpkin pie.)

3. Exercising right before dinner can cause you to overeat because you'll work up an appetite.
False (Truth: Exercise suppresses appetite and increases your metabolism. A walk before a holiday meal, and one after, is a great way to stay trim and enjoy foods, like natural whipped cream.)

4. Skip breakfast and lunch to save up your calories for the big meal.
False (Skipping meals set you up to overeat because you'll be starving. Drink a glass of water and eat a few almond or nuts before a meal to take the edge off the hunger that comes from dehydration and supply your body with some healthy fats from nuts. Try our Golden, pineapple carrot muffins.)

We at Laura's Wholesome Junk Food want to share a few of our favorite
recipes from The Wholesome Junk Food Cook book with you.

Check out these six delicious wholesome desserts to consider this holiday.

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Mini Pumpkin Pies

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With no refined sugar and all natural ingredients, this is a wholesome treat to enjoy all year long, and a great way to turn pumpkin pie into lunch-box treat. If you want a crust, you can use a regular crust or buy a gluten-free mix and just bake like a regular crust or buy a gluten-free mix and just bake like a regular pie, but I like to make them crustless. Yield: 10 to 20 mini-pies Ingredients: 1 (16-ounce) can plain pumpkin (not pie filling) 3 eggs 1 cup organic milk 1/4 to 1/3 cup agave or maple syrup (or more to taste) 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon sea salt Instructions: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 10 to 20 muffin cups with paper liners. Place the pumpkin, eggs, milk, agave syrup, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt into a blender or food processor. Cover and blend on high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Taste to adjust for sweetness. Fill each muffin cup half full with the batter. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until you can touch the tops of the pies lightly with a spoon and no batter is on your spoon, or until they crack a little on the tops. A 9-inch pie will take longer to bake. Check for doneness after 20 minutes of baking. Variation: To make a nine-inch pie, use our Organic Butter Piecrust or Organic Oil Piecrust (page 99 in the cookbook) and halve the recipe, as a pumpkin pie uses only a bottom crust. Also as a substitute, you can use soy milk, rice milk or 1/2 cup coconut milk plus 1/2 cup water in place of the regular milk. (I prefer it with coconut milk.)

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With no refined sugar and all natural ingredients, this is a wholesome treat to enjoy all year long, and a great way to turn pumpkin pie into lunch-box treat. If you want a crust, you can use a regular crust or buy a gluten-free mix and just bake like a regular crust or buy a gluten-free mix and just bake like a regular pie, but I like to make them crustless.

Yield: 10 to 20 mini-pies

Ingredients:
1 (16-ounce) can plain pumpkin (not pie filling)
3 eggs
1 cup organic milk
1/4 to 1/3 cup agave or maple syrup (or more to taste)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 10 to 20 muffin cups with paper liners. Place the pumpkin, eggs, milk, agave syrup, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt into a blender or food processor. Cover and blend on high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Taste to adjust for sweetness.
Fill each muffin cup half full with the batter.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until you can touch the tops of the pies lightly with a spoon and no batter is on your spoon, or until they crack a little on the tops.
A 9-inch pie will take longer to bake. Check for doneness after 20 minutes of baking.

Variation: To make a nine-inch pie, use our Organic Butter Piecrust or Organic Oil Piecrust (page 99 in the cookbook) and halve the recipe, as a pumpkin pie uses only a bottom crust. Also as a substitute, you can use soy milk, rice milk or 1/2 cup coconut milk plus 1/2 cup water in place of the regular milk. (I prefer it with coconut milk.)

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This Recipe

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Not My Favorite So Delicious

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Comments

[seajewel]

02:32 PM on 12/26/2010

I love the options here.

I love how sugar is optional in the whipped cream! Starbucks used to serve whipped cream from the co2 cartridge with no sugar when my daughter was little and we don't eat any sugar so we would go down for tea/coffee and they would serve us a whole cup of the whipped cream as dessert for us! Now they use whipped cream with sugar sadly and I say sadly because you just don't need it in whipped cream. I don't think most people would notice except that the flavor of the cream comes through more and it tastes better in contrast to the other ingredients. Try it you'll love it!

[Flutter Drew]

05:10 PM on 12/23/2010

The holiday season is the most important time that we should think about eating right. I'm so glad that there are good people like you to help other people keep on the right track. I posted a link to this blog in a bledit. http://www.bleditor.com/bledit.php?bleditID=15518

[omygoditsmonday]

08:27 PM on 12/21/2010

ow, never heard about wholesome junk food!haha.

[Elizabeth Trice]

06:29 PM on 12/21/2010

Thanks for posting these mouth-watering alternatives to typical holiday desserts!
Sally Breyer

[Bizroot1]

04:05 AM on 12/21/2010

I just made figgy pudding yesterday from the recipe at NPR. It has figs, raisins, dried cherries and dried cranberrie­s.
http://www.articlesmoz.com/extenze-male-enhancement

[Cornelia Goddin]

06:21 PM on 12/20/2010

Agave and vegetable oils? Sorry not healthy! At all!

[eLucida]

04:29 PM on 12/20/2010

"With no refined sugar and all natural ingredients...

AGAVE SYRUP is far from un-refined.

Dr. Jonny Bowden -Debunking The Blue Agave Myth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonny-bowden/debunking-the-blue-agave_b_450144.html

[DrP]

04:24 PM on 12/20/2010

Agave is very high in fructose. That is the simple truth and I don't have another sweetner to sell. I believe in limiting use of all sweeteners because even artificial sweeteners can cause an insulin spike, which is a major cause of inflammation and contributes to many disease processes, in addition to preventing release of fat stores. These recipes are healthier than most "holiday treats," but just adding more nutritious ingredients to foods high in sugar and other carbohydrates does not change the fact that these are still inappropriate choices for people with insulin-resistance ( a large percentage of the population). Better yet, the idea of "holiday treats" needs to be rethought. Eating truly healthy whole foods and avoiding sweets altogether year round is my treat to myself.

[seajewel]

02:34 PM on 12/26/2010

So true!

[babybelle]

01:50 PM on 12/20/2010

My favorite dessert is pureed frozen Mangos.
Pureed frozen strawberries are good too.

[Laura Trice]

02:56 PM on 12/20/2010

So yummy! Thank you for sharing.
Dr. Laura

[odyssey58]

01:16 PM on 12/20/2010

I just made figgy pudding yesterday from the recipe at NPR. It has figs, raisins, dried cherries and dried cranberries. I used bread cumbs from sprouted whole grain bread and whole spelt flour. There is only 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 stick of butter in a tube pan sized pudding. Topped with some lightly sweetened ( or unsweetened) whipped cream it packs a fair bit of nutrition for the calories.

[Laura Trice]

02:57 PM on 12/20/2010

That is sweet! I love that song and this is the first time I saw a recipe for "figgy" pudding. Thank you for posting!
Dr. Laura

[punctuateddisequilibrium]

11:22 AM on 12/20/2010

Thanks for the holiday treat and treats. I am going to make some of them and donate to a food shelter, after a few nibbles myself, of course. I really like gifts I can pass on. Make the holidays and the new year great for yourself and others.

[AZreb]

09:57 AM on 12/20/2010

Give me a break - chocolate is made from the cocoa BEAN and a bean is a VEGETABLE, right? So don't lay a guilt trip on me for that piece of chocolate cream pie!

Yep - I can justify anything!!!!!!!

[Nick Evans]

09:53 AM on 12/20/2010

The chocolate chip oatmeal cookies look amazing.

[Laura Trice]

03:00 PM on 12/20/2010

They are based on my grandmother's recipe that my mom grew up with and I grew up with. She is no longer with us, but her good nutrition and desserts still nourish her kids, grandchildren, great grand children and great, great granchildren.

[dems08]

09:40 AM on 12/20/2010

mmm... I'm hungry

[Laura Trice]

03:00 PM on 12/20/2010

Me too!
Dr. Laura

[Conk]

09:05 AM on 12/20/2010

While these little pies do seem much healthier than most, the distinction between refined sugar and agave/nectar does not exist. Sugar is sugar for the most part. And agave nectar is practically HFCS and not the wonder sweetener it's made out to be. Grade B maple syrup is a good alternative, however.

In all, good recipe.

[Laura Trice]

03:02 PM on 12/20/2010

The agave article I read by the "expert" was written by someone who has a financial investment in another liquid sweetener. Often time, smear campaignes are financially driven not necessarily fact driven. I ask people to try different natural sweeteners and see how their body, energy and skin is impacted by them and to stick with the ones their body likes best.
Dr. Laura

[seajewel]

02:46 PM on 12/26/2010

The agave issue is much deeper than just a smear campaign and the person is right, it's pure fructose. I was using it in it's raw form for almost a year because I believed the hype about it being so good, and became so adrenal fatigued from it. I don't have anywhere near the same reactions to other sweeteners and I get it from the purest sources known. Still no luck with it. Most people don't know what sugar is doing to them until it's too late and by then they are sometimes too brain fogged and adrenal fatigued to do much about it.

I do love your suggestions though. It's a great article and maple syrup is a good alternative as is raw honey, stevia, even xylitol from birch trees in moderation is sometimes safer. I especially love your open mindedness to whipped cream without sugar. Once you've had it without you'll wonder why sugar was even in there.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/30/beware-of-the-agave-nectar-health-food.aspx