These are the only chocolate chip cookies I make because they use less butter and less sugar. Most recipes call for a 1/2 cup of butter but mine… 3 tablespoons! Most recipes use all-purpose flour but mine can be made using whole wheat pastry flour. You don’t have to give up chocolate chip cookies when you can make them this much healthier. I’m using avocado oil or extra light olive oil in most of my baking these days. These cookies have lots of toasted nuts for extra protein and the darkest chocolate chips I can find.
At any given time there are cookies in my kitchen (and the freezer) and it’s what we mostly have for dessert. I love sweets but I also want to eat as healthy as I can so I am constantly looking for ways to make desserts with less sugar and this dark chocolate chip cookie is the perfect example. You don’t even have to mention that these are healthier, just serve them and watch everyone ask for more. To try these healthier, less butter chocolate chip cookies,click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
What can I say? This is the most amazing, dramatic, show-stopping dessert ever! And if you think it looks good, wait until you taste it! Having a barbeque? Going to potluck? They’ll remember you forever if you bring this to the table. Fruit pizza is basically a giant sugar cookie (of course, my version is a little healthier than most because I use less butter). You bake and cool the cookie and while it’s cooling, you get all the fruit and glaze ready. Then you build your creation.
It’s perfect for summer parties but I make fruit pizza all year round. In the summer I use peaches, raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, strawberries, and cherries when they’re more affordable (this one has Queen Ann cherries and yellow grapes on the border). In the winter I use bananas, kiwi, papaya, grapes, mango, and whatever else I can find that’s soft and colorful. If you use bananas, make sure to coat them with lemon juice as soon as they’re sliced to prevent them from turning brown.
Creating the design is so much fun and I’ve never decorated two the same way. Always start with the border first as you create your own masterpiece. And trust me – it tastes just as good as it looks. To make your own fruit pizza, click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Here is my summer gift to all the bakers. My lemon meringue pie will spoil you forever because there is nothing that compares to homemade lemon meringue pie. And when it’s healthier and easier than all the other pies, it’s a true gem. This lemon meringue pie is healthier because the crust is made with extra light olive oil, no butter or shortening, and it’s easier because you can make the whole thing, from scratch, in an hour. That includes the easiest crust ever, from scratch, and a foolproof luscious lemon curd that will never fail you.
I make all my pies with an oil crust to avoid saturated fat and they are so much easier (and healthier) than the butter or shortening kind. Oil crusts can be patted into a pie pan or rolled between wax paper and simply placed into the pan. The beauty is that if there’s a crack or opening in the crust, you can just grab some dough from somewhere else and patch it. I love that. I make mine with extra light olive oil but you can use canola or any vegetable oil of your choice.
As for the lemons, it helps to have a juicer but you do have to make fresh lemon juice. And don’t even talk to me about bottled juice! So now you have a healthier, easier way to make one of the great American classic summer desserts, lemon meringue pie. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Wow! If you ever want to up your game when baking brownies, you have to try these awesome, fudgy, moist, delicious Black Forest Brownies. It’s a simple, one-bowl recipe and by lining the pan with foil, there’s almost no cleanup. Using canned dark sweet pitted cherries makes this is an easy recipe and it’s the main reason these brownies are so moist and yummy. Oh right… then there’s the chocolate chips. What an awesome combination.
Using Dutch-processed cocoa powder, like Droste brand, is what will give you a beautiful, rich dark color but that’s not the only reason to use Dutch processed cocoa. Cocoa processed this way is less bitter than the other kind like Hershey’s natural cocoa. But… you can make these brownies with Hershey’s with just a minor change, switching from baking powder to baking soda.
My recipe uses no butter, only two tablespoons of olive oil, and Greek yogurt. I like Fage 2% yogurt (never fat-free!). I use all-purpose flour in this recipe but I’ve also made them with half all-purpose and half whole wheat pastry flour. Either way, they are not too sweet, with a delicious combination of rich chocolate and dark, sweet cherries. To try may amazing Black Forest Brownies, click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Here’s my custard pudding that I should have called “Gone in 60 Seconds.” I can hardly wait for this delicious pudding to cool down before I inhale the first cup, and then the second cup is in luke warm jeopardy. I didn’t know if I should call it Custard Pudding or Vanilla Pudding (since there is no vanilla in the recipe) but it tastes like vanilla pudding, only waaaay better!
It’s easy to make pudding from scratch. This simple recipe uses only four ingredients and it’s stuff you likely have on hand. I don’t just have it for dessert. It’s the same custard I use to fill my paczki and my custard-filled jelly roll (coming soon). Here’s an odd thing though. Once when I was anxious for it to cool down (go figure!) I poured it into pudding cups and then I stirred it a couple of times and it never firmed up after that, even when I refrigerated it. I don’t know why but my point is don’t stir it – just let it stand undisturbed until it sets. It’s not very thick when you cook it but it does firm up nicely in about an hour. Click here for the recipe.
To see me make this pudding in my Paczki video (at the 6:20 mark) click here. – Jenny Jones
This is the ONLY chocolate cake I make. I took a new picture of my sweet potato chocolate cake which was in my cookbook and is now here on my recipes page. This was one of the most popular recipes in the book and this new photo better shows off the moistness and deliciousness of this fabulous dessert.
You should try serving this cake and then ask if anyone can guess what’s in it. It’s such a rich-tasting cake they might think it has lots of butter but the cake is made without butter and with less sugar than most cakes because the sweet potato is naturally sweet. And you can make it with extra light olive oil! The frosting uses only two tablespoons of butter.
It’s pretty easy to make, too. I just chop and boil the sweet potato and either mash it with a fork or put it through a ricer. (it’s easier to clean the fork!) Then I spread the sweet potato out on a dinner plate to cool while I prep the other ingredients. It’s a one-layer cake to it’s easy to frost since you’re just frosting the top and sides. I refuse to give up my desserts so I make them as healthy as I can. This is a healthier chocolate cake and it’s an easy recipe. Good news for me: I had to make the cake to take the picture and there are still 4 slices left!
If you want a moist, delicious, guilt-free dessert, try my amazing sweet potato chocolate cake. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Any time I can make a recipe better or healthier, I’m always willing to try. I was craving lemon brownies today (maybe because my lemon tree is getting full!) so I decided to make lemon brownies and this time, I decided to experiment with whole wheat pastry flour. “These are just for me,” I thought, “so if they don’t turn out, nobody has to eat them.” I expected they would be too dense and heavy but you never know if you don’t try and any time I can bake with whole grains, I do it. I just assumed it would not work with my light and soft lemon brownies.
Guess what? They were fabulous!!! I seriously could not tell the difference from the original ones I made. All I did was replace the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour and now my lemon brownies are even healthier: no butter and no white flour! I could hardly wait to share this with everyone because “Easiest Lemon Brownies” is one of my most popular recipes. Even the picture looks the same.
Whole grains worked with my chocolate brownies and now the lemon ones too. I guess I should have known but this was a learning experience for me, to always be open to making things better. I’m so glad I decided to try this and I have just changed the printable recipe to include the whole wheat pastry flour. Everything else stays the same. If you haven’t tried them yet, you should. I just had one that was still warm. Make that two. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
I love easy cookie recipes where you just dump everything into a bowl, stir, drop, and bake. That’s how easy these coconut macaroons are to make. It only takes five ingredients to make these show-stopping cookies and that includes the chocolate. And there’s no butter! Chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons make perfect gifts. People will think you’re a gourmet baker but this is a foolproof, easy recipe.
I make these cookies every year for our annual holiday open house and there’s one guy who only comes to have these cookies. (Mark, you know who you are!) No matter how many I make, they always disappear too soon and now I think I may have to check his pockets when he leaves… 🙂
Here’s how easy it is to make these chocolate-dipped macaroons. Everything but the chocolate goes into a bowl and you combine it with 2 forks. That’s the best way I’ve found to stir it all together. Then I shape the mounds on the baking sheet using the 2 forks but you can use spoons if you like. While the cookies bake, I melt the chocolate. I used to do that in a double boiler where I placed a pyrex bowl over simmering water (the bowl can’t touch the water) but now I just microwave the chocolate to melt it. I check it at 30 seconds and a minute to stir so if you microwave, keep checking and stirring until it’s melted.
There are so many ways to add the chocolate. 1) You can cover half the cookie with chocolate and leave half plain. 2) You can drizzle strands of chocolate across the cookie back and forth with a spoon. 3) You can dip the bottom first and then add chocolate to the edges like in the photo. That’s how I usually do it. I found the first few were easy to roll around to cover the edges but when there’s less & less chocolate, I spooned it onto the edges. Then you place the chocolate-dipped cookies onto wax paper to set.
If you make them, send me a picture! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
I’ve been so busy working on new recipes and photos that I’ve neglected some of my older recipes and this week, I had a taste for carrot cake. I was surprised at how much healthier my baking is now and I thought that if any cake could be made with olive oil, it’s carrot cake. There is so much flavor there with the pineapple, toasted pecans, and cinnamon, I didn’t think you would ever taste the olive oil. So I tried it… and I was right. But that wasn’t the only change I made.
I also made it with whole wheat pastry flour so now it’s whole wheat carrot cake and I’ve even simplified the process. Carrot cake is such a great American creation. I remember the first time I was offered a piece of carrot cake. It was in the early 60s and my landlady in Las Vegas asked me if I wanted to try some carrot cake. Who puts carrots in a cake? You might as well put broccoli in my ice cream! What’s happening here? I must have made a face because she immediately said, “I know it sounds weird, but it’s really good. Just try it.” So I did. Wow! I loved it then and still love it today.
If I’m going to have cake, it has to be as healthy as I can make it and whenever I can avoid butter, I do. This cake has no butter, not even in the frosting. It’s a cream cheese frosting made with reduced fat cream cheese. Regarding the flour, the new recipe calls for 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and half all purpose flour but you can make it with 100% whole wheat pastry flour or even 100% all purpose flour if you like. All variations taste great.
One more thing: toast your nuts! There is a world of difference in flavor between raw and toasted nuts. And it’s easy. Put the raw nuts on an ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees F for 7 – 10 minutes. I toast a whole bunch at a time and keep them in the fridge for all my baking. I prefer pecans in this recipe but walnuts work too… toasted! I hope you’ll try my new Whole Wheat Carrot Cake. Click here for the recipe.
There’s no butter in this moist and sweet walnut cake. The Greeks call it karithopita and what makes it so moist is that you soak it in a spicy syrup made with cinnamon, lemon peel, and cloves. Just poke a few holes around the top of the cake and pour over a warm, sweet syrup. A lot of Greek desserts use a syrup – baklava is a great example.
I always feel better when I can bake something sweet for dessert without butter. This cake uses oil and since it’s a Greek cake, I use heart-healthy olive oil. Both olive oil and walnuts are considered heart-healthy. Any time I bake with nuts, I always toast them first and I suggest doing it for this cake, especially because there are a LOT of walnuts in the recipe and toasted walnuts always make a cake or cookies taste better.
My stepmother is Greek so I have grown to love Greek food (and her, too). She is the one who told me to poke holes in the cake before pouring on the syrup since not all recipes use holes but it really helps soak the cake beautifully. My Greek walnut cake can be served warm or cold. Make it for your next party. Opa! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
