10 Sweet Recipes for (Healthy) Post-Holiday Baking

No Comments | Written on January 3, 2013 at 1:00 pm, by The Editors

Orange Angel Food Cake with Fruit Compote

Light and heavenly as its namesake, angel food cake manages the impossible: it’s delicious and (gasp!) fat free! And yes, the warm and nicely spiced drizzle of dried fruit here really does take the cake.

Cherry-Ginger Upside-Down Cake

Want a cake that’s got a bit more heft? This moist and dense upside-down cake is low-fat, but the cherries and ginger pack so much flavor, you don’t miss the extra calories.

Carrot Cupcakes with Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake should be healthy, right. It’s got carrots in it, after all. Of course, we know traditional carrot cake doesn’t exactly qualify as health food, but these carrot cupcakes come close.

Coffee-Chocolate Marble Cake

The secret to healthier baking: let stronger flavors come to the forefront to make up for the reduction of fat. Does it work? Try this twirly combo of coffee and chocolate to find out.

“Healthified” Chocolate Lovers’ Brownies

How can it be!? A moist, chocolatey brownie that’s also low-fat? The secret here is in the ingenious use of low-fat yogurt.

Banana Oat Breakfast Cookie

Cookies for breakfast sounds as far as you can get from “healthy.” But these peanut butter and oatmeal cookies, spiked with dried cranberries, are the perfect way to start a cold winter’s day.

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Here it’s the use of egg whites and (amazingly) no butter that make for a moist chocolate cookie that’s rich on taste, not in calories.

Blueberry & White Chocolate Chunk Ginger Cookies

Blueberries … white chocolate … ginger … and these cookies are low-fat! Now that should chase those January blues away.

7-Grain Cereal Muffins

When we think “healthy baking,” for some reason, muffins always come to mind — though muffins can be far from healthy. These whole-grain muffins, however, a certifiably good for you (and certifiably good).

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

The zing of lemon in these muffins reminds us of a warm band of sunlight coming in the window on a cold winter day. Mmmmm …

January presents a quandary for those of us who love to bake. On the one hand, the holidays are over: everyone has had their fill of rich cakes, pies and cookies (oh, all those cookies!), and most of us have at least some half-hearted notion that we should strive to eat a little healthier in the new year — if only til, say, Valentine’s Day.

But on the other hand — it’s January! The very month when we’re resolving to lighten up on the sweets is also the very same month that the oven practically calls our name. It’s cold outside, and nothing warms us more (both literally and figuratively) than filling the kitchen with all those delicious baking aromas and then pulling some sweet treat out and setting it to cool on the counter. Because really, who wants to settle for nonfat frozen yogurt for dessert in the dead of winter?

Well, we’re happy that we can resolve this dilemma. Not only are these ten recipes guaranteed to satisfy your post-holiday sweet tooth (to be honest, we’re ready for a good cookie again about 72 hours after Christmas), they’re also guaranteed not to send your I’ve-got-to-eat-healthier New Year’s resolutions careering wildly off course.

So go ahead, fire up the oven. We’ve got some January baking to do.