If you are a diabetic, you have to watch your diet and avoid most desserts. Your favorite desserts are usually loaded with sugar and bad fats. But this holiday season, if you or one of your guests has diabetes, you and all your guests can still enjoy delicious desserts, from baked apples to gourmet tortes. You can modify your favorite desserts to become diabetes-friendly by reducing or eliminating the sugar content, using sugar substitutes, using low fat or no fat dairy products and substituting whole wheat or whole grain flour for white flour whenever possible. Here are some easy holiday desserts.
Chocolate Parfait for Diabetics
Prepare sugar-free chocolate pudding. In glass dessert dishes, layer pudding alternately layered with sugar-free whipped topping. Add a few drops of lemon juice or extract to the whipped topping for more flavor. Top with fresh raspberries, strawberries or semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Gingerbread for Diabetics
You can enjoy gingerbread cookies by using a sugar substitute and whole wheat flour. New sucralose-based sugar substitutes are great for baking. This recipe takes 10 minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to bake.
Chocolate Mousse Pie for Diabetics
For this recipe, use a prepackaged pie crust and sugar-free chocolate pudding mix. After preparing the pudding and baking the pie shell, mix fat-free whipped topping into the pudding and spoon it into the pie shell. Top with mini semi-sweet chocolate chips and you are done. Serve with more whipped topping if desired.
Peach Crumble for Diabetics
Use fresh peaches in this recipe, but if they are not in season, you can also use apples. Arrange peaches or apples in a pie plate and cover with a topping made from whole wheat flour, quick-cooking oats, brown sugar and trans-free margarine and bake.
Pecan Brownies for Diabetics
These delicious brownies are made with low-fat yogurt and a sugar substitute. Mix beaten eggs, sugar substitute and chocolate and fold in a flour mixture containing cocoa powder and baking powder. Then mix in yogurt and pecans and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Crunchy Chocolate Cookies for Diabetics
Both children and adults will love these cookies. Mix whole wheat flour, baking soda, vanilla extract and sugar substitute with an electric mixer. Then fold chopped almonds, pecans and semi-sweet chips into the mix before dropping spoonfuls of mix onto a baking sheet.
Cinnamon Pumpkin Torte for Diabetics
Use low-fat, yellow cake mix and pumpkin pie mix, with spices already added, to make this wonderful gourmet torte. You will lower the fat and cholesterol content if you use egg substitute instead of whole eggs and evaporated skim milk instead of regular evaporated milk.
Make the pie crust and add the filling (pumpkin mix, sugar or sugar substitute, eggs or egg substitute and canned evaporated skim milk). Sprinkle with a mixture of cake mix, cinnamon and sugar substitute over the top and bake.
Sources:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/diabetes-recipes/RE00091
http://diabeticgourmet.com/recipes/Desserts/Holiday/
http://www.best-dessert-recipes.com/diabetic-dessert-recipes.html
