Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are not Dukan friendly...but they were interesting.  They were a bit too sweet for us and had we made them smaller, it might have been easier to finish a cookie.  We actually found many variations of this cookie...so we combined a few recipes.

There are some recipes with and some without chocolate chips...we had some chocolate chips leftover from our holiday baking and didn't want to keep them in our pantry so we added them to the recipe.  We haven't tried this with splenda brown sugar and a natural sweetener yet, but maybe when we get to Consolidation we'll try this recipe with less sweetener and no chocolate chips and have it as dessert for our Celebration meal.

Sorry for the lack of photos...we hadn't planned on posting this recipe!

RECIPE:
Makes 15 large cookies or 30 small cookies
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Bake Time: 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

1 c. creamy peanut butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. organic cane sugar
1 egg
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 c. chocolate chips (try 3/4 c., 1 c. was too much)

Mix peanut butter until smooth.  Add the rest of your ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix well.  Add a little over 3/4s chocolate chips and fold in to your dough.  If necessary, put your dough into the fridge for 10 - 15 minutes for easier handling.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, line cookie sheets with parchment paper (if you wish).

We made our dough into balls and placed them on the cookie sheet.  Gently push the remaining chocolate chips on the top of each cookie.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cool completely and enjoy!

Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes - Celebration Dessert

Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes

We loved this recipe and so did our co-workers!

As mentioned in a previous post, we tried some low fat cupcake recipes from skinnytaste.com.   While we both love chocolate and thought the Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes were wonderful, these Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes really screamed "Halloween".  We're thinking about making these for Thanksgiving also.

We made these without the icing since the cake mix has enough sugar in it.  If you are interested in trying the Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Icing, here is the original recipe.

We couldn't find the Golden Vanilla cake mix here so we used French Vanilla and made a second batch of these with Yellow cake mix...both turned out just great.

RECIPE:
Makes 24 cupcakes
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Bake Time: 20-25 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

18.25 oz Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla Super Moist Cake Mix*
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup canned 100% pure pumpkin
1 cup water


Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together then add to dry mix.  Mix well.  Fill cupcake liners 2/3s full and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until cooked.  


Enjoy...we sure did!

Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes - Celebration Dessert

Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

We loved this recipe and so did our co-workers/friends.

Our new favorite low fat recipe blog is skinnytaste.com.  It's just amazing.  There are several recipes we want to try, it's just been such a busy month for us, we hardly have time to cook!  We did however try two of the low fat cupcake recipes and they were both great!

Before our vacation, we didn't quite make it to our goal, but we were pretty close.  We decided to move on to the Consolidation Phase to make eating while on vacation easier.  Next week it's back to the Attack Phase to lose the couple pounds we gained on vacation and try to lose the last few pounds we originally set out to lose.

We baked these cupcakes for a few reasons...it's part of our last celebration meal before starting attack again, tomorrow is Halloween and we're both taking a big batch of cupcakes to work and we just had to try these.

We made these without the chocolate glaze, but here is the original recipe in case you want to try the glaze too.

RECIPE:
Makes 24 cupcakes
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Bake Time: 20-25 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

18.25 oz Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix

1.4 oz sugar free, fat free, instant chocolate pudding

1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 1/3 cups water

Mix dry ingredients together.   Mix pumpkin and water together.  Add the pumpkin mix to the dry mix, mix well.  Fill cupcake liners 2/3s full.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until done.  Ours took about 22 minutes.  

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Oat Bran Muffin Tops

RECIPE RATING:
We all loved these.

Photo from Vicki C.'s Dukan Blog - we forgot to take a
pic of our muffin tops

A couple weeks ago we tried Vicki C.'s oat bran cookie recipe and after throwing it together in a rush and not measuring correctly, the cookie didn't seem to turn out.  Last week we tried the recipe again and still came up with a very dry mix, nothing like a cookie dough, so we added an additional 3-4 T. of vanilla yogurt to the recipe, liked the consistency of the dough and baked the cookies.   The cookies turned out great, but they really reminded us of muffin tops, so we're calling this adjusted recipe "Oat Bran Muffin Tops".  We made two batches, one of the muffin tops and one of the recipe exactly like Vicki's and did a taste test with our family...the results....the family members who are also trying the healthy eating lifestyle enjoyed both styles while the non-dieters preferred the muffin tops.  One of our family members said "for healthy food, that tastes pretty darn good!"

We ended up making a couple batches of these muffin tops and leaving them in the fridge.  Warm the muffin top for approximately 10-15 seconds (depending on your microwave) and they taste almost fresh baked.  The recipe Vicki provided is great...very cinnamon-y like she says.  Next batch we're hoping to try a lemon oat bran muffin top.

Dukan Mini Cheesecake

Fat Free Mini Cheesecake

The female half of this couple was trying not to make any more Dukan desserts because the weight hasn't been melting away like other Dukan bloggers.  However, in order to not cheat by eating sugar and fat loaded desserts, she decided to use up the fat free cream cheese in the fridge and make some fat free mini cheesecakes.

When they came out of the oven, they did not look appetizing.  It actually took us a couple days to want to try it.  It's actually not bad.  Not too sweet, due to the size, it's not too heavy.  The female half has had two every other day of this week!

It was very simple to make also.

RECIPE:
Makes 6-8 mini cheesecakes (depends on the size of your muffin pan)
Prep Time: 30 minutes (includes time to soften cream cheese)
Bake Time: 20 minutes (or until done) at 325 degrees Fahrenheit

1 - 8 oz. package fat free cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. natural sweetener
1 egg
1/4 t. vanilla extract
2 t. lemon juice (add more if you like yours lemony)
1 t. cinnamon sugar (homemade with natural sweetener), optional

Mix cream cheese until smooth.  Line muffin pan with cupcake liners (easier to clean).  Add sweetener and beat until smooth.   Add in egg and beat.  Add in vanilla extract, lemon juice and cinnamon sugar.  Pour batter into muffin pan about 2/3's full will give you a half size cheesecake.  Bake for 20 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cool, refrigerate, then enjoy!

Dukan Lime Tofu Dessert

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID:  Not bad, but not a go-to dessert.
SHE SAID: Although it is lighter, which I like, I don't care for the tofu and filmy aftertaste.  If we make these again, they will just be cream cheese, no tofu.

Lime Tofu Dessert

We thought this would be a great idea since we both tend to stay away from cheesecake since it's too heavy for us and it seemed really simple (versus making cheesecake delight and making our own non-fat whipped cream).  The recipe was originally a "Lemon Tofu Cheesecake", but we changed it to lime since we both love lime and we just couldn't bring ourselves to call it cheesecake since it doesn't taste like it.  It really tastes like a tofu gelatin.  We enjoy eating tofu with ponzu sauce, in stir fries, in sukiyaki and shabushabu, but not so much as a dessert.

We suppose if you LOVE tofu, you may enjoy this recipe.  Although we didn't care for the tofu filmy aftertaste, the female half did eat one entire piece!  You can really make this with whichever flavoring you like best, however, we will either take the time to make cheesecake delight, use two blocks of cream cheese and omit the tofu or try the Lemon Cheesecake Loaf Vicki tried!

RECIPE:
Makes 16 muffin cup
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Chill Time: Overnight

1-12 oz container of sukui or silky tofu (rinsed and drained)
1-8 oz. package of fat free cream cheese (room temperature)
1/2 c. natural sweetener (if you don't like your desserts too sweet, try half the sugar, then taste your batter)
grated zest of one lime
juice of one lime
1 tsp. lime extract
1 t. vanilla extract
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/4 c. water

Beat tofu, cream cheese and sugar until smooth.  Stir in lime zest, lime juice, lime extract and vanilla extract.  In a small saucepan, soften gelatin in 1/4 c. water, use low heat until gelatin is dissolved.  Stir gelatin mixture into tofu mixture.  Pour into muffin pan or a regular pan.  Refrigerate overnight.

Dukan Chocolate Cups

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Same as her rating.
SHE SAID: Didn't really care for these, needs some tweaking.

Chocolate cups

Chocolate is one of our favorite things.  We really missed it the first couple of weeks on Dukan, but now, the cravings have gone away....until we came across mydukandiet.com's Chocolate Praline recipe.  Wow, it sounded really good....not "can't wait to try them good", but a nice thing to add to our snack collection.

This recipe sounded perfect since we both prefer our chocolate plain, without nuts and gooey stuff.  We turned these into Chocolate Cups since we have an ice maker and do not own ice cube trays!  The muffin pan was the smallest "mold" we had.

This really was an easy recipe.  Just didn't really tickle our fancy.  First of all, we're dark chocolate lovers, not milk chocolate lovers.  Again, the recipe was so easy, Dukan'd and chocolate...we couldn't resist trying it.  We used Xylitol for the candy which of course since you're mixing ingredients without anything warm to melt the Xylitol, it doesn't dissolve.  It gave it sort of a "crunchy" texture which was interesting.  The recipe was too sweet for us.  Also, the candy never really completely hardens even after refrigerating, so it melts fairly quickly and we ended up licking it off the muffin liners.  Perhaps we did something wrong!  However, it did inspire us to look for some dark chocolate candy recipes and hopefully this weekend we will have time to experiment.

We followed the recipe almost exactly as found on mydukandiet.com with the exception of using silk soy milk instead of regular skimmed milk and no egg yolk.

RECIPE
Makes 5 chocolate cups
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Chill Time: several hours

1 T. unsweetened cacao powder
2 T. silk soy milk (plus a little extra if your mix is dry)
7 T. nonfat powdered milk
3 T. natural sweetener (try less if you prefer less sweet, and maybe a liquid sweetener)
8 drops vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.  Add only enough milk to mix easily.  Pour into your desired mold (ice cube tray, muffin pan, etc).  Refrigerate for several hours.

If you like these, you can even add other flavorings.

Dukan Orange Creme Vanilla Oat Bran Muffins

RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, just not a muffin guy.
SHE SAID: Yum!  I think I like these better than the chocolate ones and I'm a chocoholic!

Orange Creme Vanilla Oat Bran Muffins

Found this recipe on Dukanitout.com.  Can you tell it's one of our favorite sites?!  We changed it a bit since we had a container of Yoplait Non-fat Orange Creme yogurt expiring soon.  Probably more sugar than we need, but the recipe only uses about 1/2 the container.

These smelled so yummy and orange creamsicle like when mixing and baking.  We also substituted 2 of the oat bran tablespoons for 2 tablespoons of wheat bran.  As mentioned in a previous post, we baked our chocolate oat bran muffins with all oat bran and one batch with oat bran and wheat bran and the wheat bran seems to help it be more "cake like".  Lastly, we increased the orange extract and added vanilla extract to intensify the flavors.

We will be trying the Key Lime Pie yogurt in this recipe also (minus the orange extract).

RECIPE:
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Bake Time: 15-18 minutes

6 T. oat bran
2 T. wheat bran
1 t. baking powder
2 t. natural sweetener
1 T. sugarfree vanilla pudding powder
1/2 c. egg whites
5 T. nonfat Orange Creme yogurt (Yoplait)
1 1/2 t. pure orange extract
1/2 t. pure vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add yogurt and eggs and whisk until smooth.  Add orange extract and mix.  Pour batter into muffin pan (we use baking cups for easier clean up).  Bake at 350 degree Fahrenheit for 15-18 minutes.  Eat while warm.  For your extras, pop them in the microwave on medium high heat for 20 seconds and they will taste almost fresh out of the oven!  (Hint, if you're in Consolidation or Stabilization and your celebration meal includes chewy type cookies, heat them in the microwave!)

Enjoy!