White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Im always super excited when my Cooking Light Magazine comes in the mail. I find that they have a lot of my favorite recipes with the fat and calorie count decreased by a fair amount. and they always have great ideas for all different kinds of food. and they are soooo good about revamping seasonal feasts (thanksgiving, easter, christmas, etc) into more calorie-friendly meals. it is really such a great utility to have if you are into cooking and baking, but dont like extra fat around your hips and thighs! (and who likes extra fat?)

anyhow, i found this great cookie recipe in the most recent edition (May 2007). this recipe originally called for dried strawberries in place of cranberries, but i thought the sour cranberry would offer the cookie a better kick, and i had just enough to create the batter, so i present you cookies that are deliciously wonderful and wont kill your summer get-fit plans!


Ingredients
(Yields: 2 dozen)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup regular oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup premium white chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
Cooking spray

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Lightly spoon flour into a measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer; beat at medium speed until well blended (about 3 minutes). Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until blended. Add strawberries and chips; beat at low speed just until blended.
3. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; cool on pan 1 minute. Remove cookies from pan; cool completely on wire racks.



NUTRITION PER COOKIE
CALORIES 98(30% from fat); FAT 3.3g (sat 2.1g,mono 0.6g,poly 0.2g); PROTEIN 1.2g; CHOLESTEROL 14mg; CALCIUM 11mg; SODIUM 73mg; FIBER 0.6g; IRON 0.5mg; CARBOHYDRATE 16g

Cooking Light, MAY 2007

parfaits are sexy

desserts are sexy, really, sweets are way sexier than savory foods. afterall, they dont say chocolate is an aphrodisiac for nothing. anyhow, champagne is also sexy, which is perhaps why champagne flutes look sexy. long, lean, and bubbly. yum. now can you imagine how sexy desserts are in champagne flutes? yes. i found out with parfaits in champagne flutes. and they look so long and sleek. yum. and sexy.

i made some parfaits and placed them in long champagne flutes. parfaits are relatively easy to make. you just take fruits, cool whip, pudding, some cakey- substance, layer, and repeat to your own liking. i had blackberries, strawberries, and bananas on hand, so i used those fruits. then used my blueberry bundt cake recipe and substituted strawberries instead of the blueberries to keep the strawberry theme going. i made mini muffins that were almost perfect in size for my champagne flutes. then layered pudding and coolwhip. some had more cake than others, some had more berries than others. i like the easy variation and the vibrant colors of this dessert. the bright colors made me feel as if i were on vacation, hence the tropical-esque pictures. and its very simple and fun to make. definitely a relaxing way to relieve the workweek stress. i really cant wait until summer comes in full bloom.

oh speaking of summer weather, this dessert is bikini friendly. yes yes i know - how do i do it? sometimes i ask myself the same question. [the hubris is self-mocking.]

bon appetit!

low fat blueberry bundt cake

its kind of intense when i think about how its already may! 2007 has gone by so fast already. i attribute such warped sense of time to my happiness in life. as they say, time flies when youre having fun. and life really is a blast right now!

this last week i was definitely missing my oven, which explains the lack of exciting entries! it was not optimal for baking, as there was a lot of good events things that happened in the family. first off, id like to welcome l.'s (my sister who makes marvelous quiche) new daughter! baby a! is sooo adorable (she is so cute that her online alias will be a! not just a. but a!) and tiny and i just want to hug her. i havent been able to see her but she is on my desktop, phone, among many other highly visible locations. im obsessed! im so excited i will see her in 2 weeks! and my other sister p. got into her first-choice grad school! (ambiguity is to maintain the anonymity) also yesterday was my aunts birthday! another year wiser, of course. good things are happening in life!

thats why i thought i needed to mirror some good things in the oven! with spring in full bloom, evidenced by the fabulous farmer's market i went to today, i wanted to make something springy and colorful! after browsing on blogs endlessly, i finally decided on a blueberry muffins/cakes/cupcake! low fat blueberry bundt cakes! ok i dont think they are technically bundt cakes, but my new molds came, and i wanted to make use of them! besides, my friend s says i can put whatever i want into my bundt pans! (technically the silicon molds are savarin molds, but i havent yet been able to distinguish the 2. all i know is that they make pretty cake patterns!)

so according to wikipedia, a bundt cake is the "name used for a dessert caked cooked in a Bundt pan." it is actually trademarked by a Mr. H. David Dalquist in 1950. the story goes something like this. mr. dalquist wanted to create the optimal pan for bundkuchen, a popular German coffee cake. Older pans were made out of ceramic or heavy cast iron, which lacked in the ease of use department. As a result, Mr. Dalquist modified some existing Scandinavian pan designs by introducing folds in the outer edge, and fashioned the pan out of aluminum. Fast forward almost 60 years and we have silicone versions of these babies and recreated completely different recipes for these! im definitely on team innovation!

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup all-purpose and 1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 cup 1% milk
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2/3 packed cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup frozen blueberries

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon until well combined. Set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, using a handheld electric mixer set at high speed, beat the milk, applesauce, brown sugar, egg, oil, and vanilla until frothy, about two minutes. Pour in the liquid mixture into the dry one. Using a spoon, mix just until moistened. Gently fold in the blueberries until the flour is incorporated. Do not overmix.
4. Divide the batter into molds. [for mini molds, fill only halfway] Bake until the tops spring back when pressed gently in the center, about 20 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool in the pan on a wire cake rim for 10 minutes before removing from cups. Serve warm or cool.

if you notice, the recipe is super low fat. i cut out a lot of the oil in this recipe and used unsweetened applesauce to get a similar texture and consistency. as a rule of thumb, usually 1 cup of oil can be substituted with 3/4-1 cup of unsweetened applesauce, which is what i did. i added 1.5 tbsp of canola oil because you should allow a small portion of the butter/oil to remain in the recipe for the sake of taste.

so when i made my mini bundt cakes, i put too much batter so they looked like awkward muffins. thats no fun! and since im big on creativity, i took the cute muffin tops and made parfaits with them! a layer of the cake, a layer of instant vanilla pudding, a layer of fruits, then repeat! then i topped it all with some fat free cool whip! they turned out REALLY delicious! the only problem is since im an amateur, the layers did not come out very pretty. nonetheless, they tasted really great! im so impressed! next time, to cut the calorie count, ill use sugar free jello! other than that, i think i decreased the fat grams as much as i could without sacrificing flavor. ta da!

looks pretty good doesnt it? it tasted pretty good!

after making 6 mini bundt cakes, i had a lot of leftover batter. i decided to whip out my yellow bundt cake mold and give it a whirl in the oven. i put it in the oven at a temperature a bit lower than for the mini bundt cakes (340F), and ran into the shower. 20 minutes later [i shower fast!], i went downstairs to take the cake out and let it sit for a few minutes. when it was almost cooled, i was able to fold it out of the mold perfectly! i was impressed! it looked so pretty!

im giving this cake to my little sister who is in college studying for finals! i will see her tonight and bring her the lovely cake!

bon appetite!!