Pecan Pralines with Yogurt Frosting

One of the American south’s most classic treats is the Praline (pronounced “praw-leen”), a confection made from nuts and a sweet coating. Some versions, especially in Europe where they originated, are hard (similar to peanut brittle) and use almonds. When French settlers brought them to Louisiana in the 1800’s, an American praline evolved using pecans and made with cream to give them a texture more like a firm fudge. Once you taste a praline’s crunchy rich sweetness, you’ll know why they’re still made and loved today.

In this version, we’ll reduce the fat content by using fat-free half-and-half in place of cream. Then, just because we can, we’ll top it with a frosting made from fat-free Greek Yogurt. (In general, I’ve found fat free half-and-half and fat free Greek yogurt can be valuable additions to your fat-reducing cooking arsenal.)

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin:

• In the recipe that follows, you’ll note that making pralines can take several hours. Don’t be put off; almost all of that is inactive time, during which the pralines are cooling and getting firm, and you’re reading e-mails and practicing Zumba. 

• We'll be heating the sugar mixture to 236 degrees, what candy-makers call "soft ball." Although there’s a way described below to do this that doesn’t require a candy thermometer, the use of a candy thermometer is strongly recommended. It’s easier and a lot more reliable, and something you’ll find to be a valuable item to have on hand for frying, candy making, etc.

• Use caution when heating the sugar mixture, particularly when stirring. Hot sugar makes for one of the worst kitchen burns there is.

The number of pralines this recipe makes depends, of course, on how big you make them. If you make them about 1-1/2 tablespoons each, you’ll get about 28.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. When hot, place 2 cups of chopped pecans or pecan halves in a single layer on a baking sheet into the oven until toasted, about 10 minutes, turning them once.

In a saucepan, combine 1-1/2 cups of granulated (white) sugar, 1-1/2 cups of brown sugar and 1-1/2 cups of fat-free half-and-half.

Over medium heat, and stirring gently and very often, bring the mixture to 236 degrees (“soft ball”) as measured on a candy thermometer, or until a small amount dropped into a cup of very cold water forms a soft ball. (The thermometer is better to use.) Reaching “soft ball” over medium heat should take about 20 minutes, but cook this by temperature, not by time. As you can see in the photo, expect a good bit of frothing along the way.

Remove the mixture from the heat and let cool for about an hour.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and the toasted pecans, and stir till the pecans are well coated and the mixture is creamy and firm.

Spoon the mixture onto a foil-lined baking sheet lightly coated with butter substitute, using about 1 to 1-1/2 Tbsp for each praline. Let rest for another 1 – 2 hours.

While the pralines are cooling, mix 1 cup of fat-free Greek yogurt and 2 cups of confectioners sugar till combined, and refrigerate until ready to use.

When the pralines are ready to be coated, begin preheating the oven to 225 degrees. Using tongs, dip the pralines one by one into the yogurt mix and place on a wire rack on a baking sheet. When the pralines are all coated and on the wire rack, turn off the oven and place the baking sheet into the oven with the door ajar for at least 4 hours to help the frosting firm up. (Cook’s note: In the batch I made for the photo at the top of this article, I decided to frost only half of the pralines and leave the others plain.)

When the coating has dried, place the pralines into an air-tight container. They should keep for at least three days, if no one eats them all before that!

Hope you enjoy making (and, of course, eating!) the sweet goodness of these delicious treats. Stop by again next week for more! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-) 

Low-Fat Cranberry-Orange Muffins with Raspberry Liqueur or Orange Puree Glaze

One of my favorite (and simple!) ways to bring baked goods to a new level is to add a nice glaze. In this recipe, we’ll take an easy cranberry-orange muffin, give the cake a creamy texture using fat-free Greek yogurt, and top it with either of two glazes, one made from orange puree and one made from raspberry liqueur. (The photo at right shows both; the muffins on the left have the orange glaze, the ones on the right have the raspberry glaze.)

How easy are Low-Fat Glazed Cranberry Orange Muffins? Years ago, before I was ever interested in real cooking, I could make two things: pancakes, and cranberry-orange muffins. A while back I updated the pancake recipe (check out Fluffy and Reduced Fat Blueberry Pancakes with Fresh Strawberry Syrup), and now it’s the muffins’ turn.

Two points to mention before we start:

• Although I’m showing two particular flavorings for the glaze, feel free to substitute any flavor you like. Just substitute the appropriate liquid in place of the orange puree or the raspberry liqueur. Glaze made with lemon juice, for example, is often used and works with a lot of baked goods.
• One of my pet peeves is when fruit muffins are made with practically no fruit. (We’ve all had blueberry muffins that turned out to be called that only because the baker passed a blueberry over the batter before baking it, and putting the blueberry aside to wave over the next batch.) I think we should be able to pick up a muffin and see fruit starting to show through the sides. (Don’t overdo this, though; too much fruit and the muffins won’t hold together.)

This recipe makes about 8 large muffins. (You can also use it to make more small muffins, but who wants small muffins?)

Sift together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, a generous pinch of salt and 4 teaspoons of baking powder into a large bowl.

Add 1 cup of sugar and stir to combine.

Make a well in the flour mixture and add the zest of one orange.

Then add 1 cup of fat-free Greek yogurt, ¼ cup of skim milk, 3 tablespoons of melted butter substitute, 2 egg-substitute eggs, and . Mix the wet ingredients in the well, then stir into the dry ingredients to form a batter.

Fold 1-1/4 cups of dusted whole cranberries (cranberries tossed with flour to coat them lightly) into the batter. (Fresh or frozen both work well; if you’re using frozen there’s no need to thaw them.)

Pour into muffin tins (1/2 to 2/3 full) and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes till the tops are firm and the edges are lightly browned. When they’re done, a toothpick inserted into the center of one should come out clean.

After baking, let the muffins rest in the muffin tins for about five minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

When the muffins have cooled, prepare the glaze by combining one cup of confectioner’s sugar with 1 Tbsp of orange puree (made from the orange you zested earlier) or raspberry liqueur. Add additional liquid, little by little, until the glaze is thick but spreadable and does not ball up. Apply the glaze to the top of the muffins and let firm up for about 30 minutes.

Be careful. These can be mighty addictive!

I hope you enjoy making – and eating – these tasty (and, let’s not forget, low-fat) muffins!

See you next week with another delicious, kitchen-tested, reduced fat recipe! Till then, and as always, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Tzatziki Corn Salad

A warm welcome to new subscriber Jacqueline!

With summer now in full swing, a lot of food talk naturally turns to cookout-type food. Here’s an easy, delicious side dish for your next backyard gathering or company picnic: Tzatziki Corn Salad.

Corn salads are usually pretty popular, and with good reason: they’re tasty and refreshing to eat, and easy to make, even in large quantities. While the vegetables in them can vary somewhat, the big difference between corn salads often lies in the choice of dressing. For this version, I’m using a tzatziki sauce. While Greece has made countless contributions to western civilization, all that art, mathematics and philosophy pale next to a good tzatziki, a tangy yogurt-and-cucumber based white sauce. Even if you don’t make this corn salad, the tzatziki sauce will be a useful addition to your repertoire. Opa, indeed!

This recipe makes about 6 cups of corn salad.

To make the sauce:

Combine ¾ cup fat free Greek yogurt; ½ medium cucumber (seeds removed), finely chopped; ½ teaspoon kosher salt; 2 garlic cloves, finely minced; ½ tablespoon olive oil; 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar; and either 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano, or 1 teaspoon dried oregano. Set the sauce aside while you work with the vegetable.

The make the vegetable mix:

You’ll need either 12 ears of corn, silks and husks removed, or 4 cups of frozen corn kernels thawed and patted dry with a paper towel. Apply a small amount of olive oil the corn (just enough to lightly coat for grilling), and grille until the corn is lightly browned. (Don’t kill it; you’re just looking to give it a little color and mild grilled taste.) Set the corn aside and let cool. If you’re using fresh corn, cut the kernels off the cob after the corn has cooled.

Combine the corn, 4 cups of diced tomatoes (fresh or well-drained canned), 1 finely chopped green or orange pepper, ½ cup of minced onion, and 1 minced large stalk of celery in a large bowl. (Adding some diced, cooked bacon here is optional, but highly recommended.) Drain again to remove any extra liquid so that the tzatziki sauce does not get diluted.

Add the sauce and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. For best flavor, refrigerate overnight to chill the salad and give the flavors a chance to combine. Garnish with parsley before serving, and you’ve got a winner!

As always, if you prefer a cookbook style, notebook-ready version of this recipe, send me a note or a comment along with your e-mail address, and it shall be yours.

That’s it for now. I’m looking forward to sharing another easy, delicious, reduced-fat dish with you next week. Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Apricot Molten Lava Cake with Lemon Glaze

Welcoming new subscriber CatherineK to the Kissing the Cook family: it’s great to have you!

Molten lava cake: if you like delicious, whimsical desserts that are easy to make and fun to eat, it's one of the best.

There are many recipes for this classic dessert, and every I've looked at uses chocolate. Since my wife is allergic to chocolate, even to the smell of chocolate, I’m unable to cook with it. And so I took the lack of any recipes that weren’t chocolate as a personal challenge to create one, and a low-fat one at that. I decided on Apricot Molten Lava Cake with Lemon Glaze.

This was not done without a bit of trepidation. It’s one thing to put your own twist on an established food concept; it’s quite another to want to do something that’s unheard of. Jerry Seinfeld once said, “The road less traveled is usually less traveled for a reason,” and I’ve found there’s a lot of truth in that. (An earlier ill-advised attempt at another chocolate work-around - rice-krispy treats coated with butterscotch - comes to mind as just one example of what Mr. Seinfeld was referring to.) Still, the lava cake challenge was alluring, and somehow I knew it would work, and that adding the lemon glaze would give a nice contrast to the natural sweetness of the cake. I’m proud to report the delicious dessert below.

The ingredients, and the method for making the batter, are simple. (In overview, you’ll see that there are certain key substitutions for the usual lava-cake ingredients involved: apricot preserves instead of chocolate; fat-free Greek yogurt for egg-yolks; egg-substitute eggs for regular eggs; and butter substitute for butter.) The trick to making any lava cake work – moist cake on the outside; hot, tasty liquid filling on the inside – is in the baking time. Since this will vary somewhat from oven to oven, there’s a chance you may overcook these the first time, getting a nice, moist cake that tastes great but that is not liquid in the middle. Don’t be discouraged; eat them anyway and just remember to bake them a little less next time. (Remember, though, try to resist the temptation to eat them all. These are low-fat, not low-calorie.)

This recipe makes 6 large-muffin-size servings.

While preheating your oven to 425 degrees, melt 1-1/2 tablespoons of butter substitute, and use it to grease 6 ramekins or large muffin tins, then coat each with granulated sugar.

In a double boiler, melt 6 ounces of apricot preserves and 8 tablespoons of butter substitute, stirring gently and frequently. When they are melted and smooth, gradually stir in ½ cup of all-purpose flour, ¼ cup fat-free Greek yogurt, and 1-1/2 cups of confectioner’s sugar. When the mixture is combined and smooth set it aside.

In a bowl, use a hand-mixer to beat together 3 egg-substitute eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla until they are thick, about five minutes. Once that’s done, gently whisk the preserves mixture into the beaten egg mixture until they for a well-mixed batter.

Pour the batter into the ramekins or large size muffin tin. (The batter doesn’t rise much so you can fill them nearly to the top.) Bake them for 10 – 14 minutes (depending on your oven), turning half-way, until the tops are firm and the edges are just starting to brown. The first time you make these, you’ll want to be sure you keep an eye on them in the oven so that the inside of the cake stays liquid. As with any molten lava cake, the bake time is critical.

After removing the cakes from the oven, let them rest in the ramekins or muffin tin for 3 – 4 minutes. While the cakes are resting, combine 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar with 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to form a glaze.

After the cakes have rested, run a butter knife around the edges of the ramekins or muffin tins to loosen them, and turn them out, as in the photo at right. Drizzle the tops and sides with glaze, and serve while warm.

I hope you enjoy this special treat. If you prefer a cookbook-style, notebook-ready copy of this recipe, just send me your e-mail address (if I don’t have it already) and it will be done!

(You can also find this and many other yummy desserts at  http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/, a great forum for all things sweet!)

See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Low-Fat Strawberry Scones

Have you ever fallen in love with an ingredient?

I like to have fresh fruit with fat free yogurt for breakfast. A few weeks ago, my supermarket didn’t have the yogurt I usually buy; in fact, the only fat-free yogurt they weren’t out of was Greek yogurt, which I’d heard much about but had never used. So I got that.

If you’ve had Greek yogurt, you undoubtedly remember its wonderfully rich texture and intense flavor, even when it’s the fat-free kind.  And if you haven’t had it, you’re missing something good. One taste and I knew this was more than something to mix with fruit for breakfast. It was a special ingredient, a valuable addition to the arsenal of anyone who pursues the challenging task of low fat baking.

And so we come to low fat strawberry scones: low fat because they’re made with egg substitute, butter substitute, and the fat-free Greek yogurt.

One of the keys to low-fat baking is an understanding that there’s more to using butter-substitutes than simply using them instead of butter. The nuances I’ve learned are discussed in more detail in an earlier post (Impossible Pie Crust), but for now we’ll emphasize keeping it not just cold, but very cold. Cold (as you would keep butter) means refrigerator; very cold (as least as I’m using it for butter substitute) means freezer.  For related reasons, it’s best to make and work with the dough at a brisk pace; the longer you wait, the warmer your ingredients will become.

And what if you can’t find Greek yogurt? A good substitute for that can be made from regular fat free yogurt. Just create a make-shift filter by putting one or two paper towels in a strainer (coffee filters work too), pour your regular yogurt in and let it drain overnight, covered by plastic wrap. The amount of yogurt will reduce by as much as half once it is drained, and you’ll be left with something a good bit thicker and more intensely flavored that the yogurt you started with.

Another item in this recipe that benefits from explanation are the strawberries I use: they’re the frozen kind. It’s a lesson I learned years ago when making a muffin recipe I’d gotten out of a magazine and was appalled that it called for frozen strawberries. Frozen? Not in MY muffins. So fresh strawberries it was. And the muffins were awful, the cake tasting nothing like strawberries. Humbled by the experience, I went back and took out the improvements, making the muffins again but this time with the frozen strawberries called for in the recipe. I learned that frozen are not inferior to fresh, they just “bleed” in a different way that makes them useful for baked items in which you want the fruit flavor to permeate the cake.

One final note: as you’ll see in the photo, yes, I do a Jersey-style application for the glaze. If you want to do a more elegant squirt bottle or drizzle thing, feel free.

This recipe makes about eight 4” triangular scones (these size in the photo), or about sixteen 2-1/2” triangular scones.

While preheating your oven to 375 degrees, combine 2 cups of all-purpose flour, ¼ cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt in a bowl. Mix in 6 tablespoons of butter substitute (chilled in the freezer) and blend by hand or in a mixer until pea-size pieces form.

Make a well in the flour mixture and add ½ cup of very cold fat-free Greek yogurt (chilled in the freezer) and 2 egg substitute eggs. Mix the wet ingredients in the well completely, then combine with the dry ingredients to form a dough.

Dust ½ cup of diced, thawed frozen strawberries with flour, and fold into the dough.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to about ¾” thick and cut into triangles about 2-1/2” x 2-1/2” x 3”. Place about 1” apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake for 18-20 minutes, turning the baking sheet half-way. Once the scones have finished baking, let them cool on a rack for 30 minutes.

While the scones are cooling, make the glaze by combining the 1 tablespoon of pureed, thawed frozen strawberries with 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar until it is thick (but spreadable) and smooth.

After the scones have cooled, apply the glaze and wait 30 minutes for the glaze to get firm.

Hope you enjoy them!

For a cookbook-style, notebook-ready copy of this recipe (or any other recipe you see on this site), just let me know you’d like one and I’ll send it along.

See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)