Birthday Pie....Oh My!

Yesterday was Kaylee's birthday.  My oldest baby is now 11.  It's crazy how the time flies.  This little girl has been with me through so much.  I realized something Saturday though.  Many people get depressed because their kids are growing up, or that they are getting old.  That's not what upsets me.  It upsets me that as each year passes that means that I'm another year closer to her leaving for college.  Another year closer to her leaving me.

And I'm going to stop right there.  I'm starting to tear up just thinking about it and trying to type while crying isn't exactly easy.  But, in this house, we don't do normal birthdays.  When it comes to birthdays we kinda march to a different drum.  My kids know that birthday desserts aren't just limited to cake.  They know that anything that can have a candle stuck on it is acceptable.  For past birthdays I've made ice cream cakes, brownies, watermelon cakes, and trifles.  This year Kaylee decided on a birthday pie.  A chocolate mousse birthday pie to be specific.  I used a fat free cookie crust, did a layer of chocolate ganache on the bottom and filled it with chocolate Dream Whip mousse.

For the cookie crust
2.75 cups flour
.75 cups cocoa powder
1 t baking powder (optional)
.5 cup applesauce
.5 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
egg substitute equivalent to 2 eggs
1 - 1.75 cups sugar
2 t vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Place flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Stir to combine.  {You'll know it's well combined when it's all one color}
3. In a separate bowl whisk together applesauce, greek yogurt, egg substitute and vanilla.
4. Pour applesauce mixture into flour mixture.  It should form a doughy ball.
5.  Grease a pie pan or large baking dish
6. Using cocoa powder, "flour" a cutting board and roll out the dough into about a 1/4" thick piece that will cover your pie pan. {If dough is too sticky knead a little more cocoa powder into it before rolling it out}
7. Lay dough in pan and cut to fit.
8. Using a fork prick holes in the pie dough {this is so it doesn't rise as much as it bakes}
9. Bake for 16-20 minutes until done.

Chocolate Ganache Layer

1 cup chocolate chips

.25 cup skim milk

Directions

1. Bring milk to a boil
2. Pour on top of chocolate chips
3. Stir until melted and combined
4. Pour in pie shell and refrigerate until hardened

For the filling

2 envelopes Dream Whip

2 (4 serving) packages of any flavor Jello pudding mix

2.75 cup skim milk
.5 t vanilla

Directions

1. Mix Dream Whip with 1 cup of milk and vanilla in bowl of mixer
2. Beat on high speed for 6 minutes until peaks form
3. Add milk and pudding mix
4. Mix on medium, then beat on high for 2 minutes
5. Fill pie shell

If you leave off the ganache this pie is fat free.  So, are the people in your house traditional birthday cake people or nontraditional birthday dessert people?  What are your favorite birthday desserts?

An Ode To My Mother....Kinda

Growing up I remember my mother used to make a lemonade cake.  It was amazing.  Kind of sweet, super lemony, just great.  I'm a sucker for anything lemon.  So, when I thought about the Recipe Redux theme {Treasured Cookware}, this recipe came to mind.

There isn't a piece of cookware in my kitchen that WAS my mother's but, she has stocked about half of my bakeware throughout the years.  Every Christmas I get a new piece.  One of the things she bought me was my angel food cake pan.  

Honestly I used to hate angel food cake, until it was the ONLY cake I could eat.  Now I love it and love playing around with flavors and different ways of using it.  For this recipe I used sugar free lemonade mix since there is SO MUCH sugar in the cake and then the glaze has added sugar.  I prefer to not have a complete sugar bomb. Pink Lemonade would make this rather pretty too.

Angel Food Lemonade Cake

Ingredients
1 angel food cake (I normally use a box mix and make it myself but, you can use a store bought one)
.25-.5 cup sugar free powdered lemonade mix (depending on how lemony you want it)
1 cup powdered sugar
2-4 T water


Directions

1. Poke holes in the top of the cake with a fork
2. In a small bowl mix together lemonade mix and powdered sugar
3. Whisk in water and continue whisking until you have a nice smooth glaze
4. Pour glaze over the top of the cake making sure some of the glaze gets into all the holes.
5. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

An InLinkz Link-up

A Shot of Frosting....and Protein

First off, look what came!!!

Now I feel official!!

If you follow me on Facebook you know that I started with a prep coach.  As part of my competition prep I'm expected to eat 150 grams of protein.  I was finding this a tad bit difficult.  The first few days I came up so short!

I came up with this way of adding additional protein into my diet AND treating myself to dessert every nite.  Add a scoop of protein powder into my yogurt.  You can use either the flavored yogurt or plain.  I use the Danon Light n Fit 80 calorie yogurts.  Plain yogurt will work just as well and if you use the right protein powder it will flavor the yogurt for you.  But I have to warn you.  I've tried this with my other protein powder and it wouldn't thicken.  It still tastes good but, it's thin.  

I calculated the calories using Danon Light n Fit Greek yogurt and Spiru-tein Cookies and Cream protein powder.  

Fat Free Frosting Shots
Calories:  200
Fat: 1 gram
Carbs: 24 grams
Protein: 26 grams

Ingredients
1 5.3 oz container fat free Greek yogurt
1 serving protein powder

Directions

1. Stir together until evenly combined
2. Enjoy!

You could honestly use this to frost a cake.  It would probably be delicious.  And the flavor combinations are endless.  Tell me, what flavor combinations do you think would taste good together?

First Day of Spring, A Few Days Late

If I could change one thing about myself it would be the fact that I could stop giving the girls dessert.    5 years ago, before I started trying to lose weight and get healthy, my girls RARELY ate dessert.  It was a special treat.  They were fine with that.  Fast forward 5 years and they are really disturbed if they don't get dessert after dinner.

How could someone adapt a healthy lifestyle THEN start giving their kids dessert every night?  Easy.  My kids eat healthy nutritious food 99% of the day.  There are not many days that they eat crap food.  So, dessert is allowed.  {Please remember, these are my opinions on the subject.}  Plus, my new rule is that there's a calorie limit.  200 calories is the max for dessert.

I made a festive spring dessert that comes in at half of their dessert limit for a HUGE piece.  I originally planned on making these to celebrate the first day of spring but, our house was overrun with Girl Scout Cookies so, they had to wait a few days.  

I love cereal treats.  They are so versitile.  You can use the traditional Rice Krispies or, you can mix it up and use a different cereal.  My mom used to mix Rice Krispies and Fruity Pebbles.  They were almost as pretty as these and just as tasty.  You can also add stuff to them.  Chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit.  Cereal treats are a blank slate that you can totally go wild with.  Let the kids design their own treats!  

Super Spring Cereal Treats
12 squares/16 squares
Calories:  106/ 80
Fat:  .6 g / .4 g
Carbs:  25.4 g / 19.1 g
Sugar:  16.3g / 12.2 g


6 cups Froot Loops (You can use Fruity Cheerios, or Trix instead if you want)
4 cups mini marshmallows
.25 cup light corn syrup


Directions

1. Line an 8x10 cake pan with plastic wrap and spray with pan spray.
2. In a microwave safe bowl combine marshmallows and Karo.  Microwave on high for 1 minute, stir, then microwave another minute and stir again.
3. Put the cereal in a separate bowl.  When the marshmallows are done pour them into the bowl with the cereal and mix carefully until all the cereal is coated with marshmallow.
4. Press into pan and leave until completely cool.
5. Cut into squares.

What combinations do you think would taste good?  Do you allow your kids to have dessert?

Greek Yogurt FroYo

It was close to 80 today!  Spring is finally back!  I'm so excited.  The next week is supposed to be gorgeous and I plan on spending as much time enjoying it as possible.  

Monday was crazy.  So many exciting things happened.  My study materials came, I met with my trainer, my body fat measurer also arrived.  Tuesday was insane due to running errands and Mantha had her opening nite for the yearly musical that the school does.  Today my coach sent my first workout and meal plan.  My nutrition is super tight.  Did you know that March is National Nutrition Month, a month designated to focus on making healthier food choices for better overall health and wellness?  This year the theme for Nutrition Month is “Enjoy the Taste of Eating Right,” which is easy when you include California dairy products. 

The California Milk Advisory Board, which represents more than 1500 dairy families, is celebrating “dairy good” nutrition by asking Recipe ReDux members to “lighten up” some of their favorite recipes with California dairy.

In addition to calcium benefits, dairy in any form – whether it’s low-fat milk with cereal, a yogurt parfait, a smoothie, or egg and cheese sandwich – packs protein – which helps keep you full until your next meal. The California Milk Advisory Board and their nutrition partner, The Dairy Council of California, understand that dairy plays a vital role in contributing to an overall healthy diet and in support of National Nutrition Month wants to encourage everyone to adopt healthy food habits with dairy.

Recipe ReDux members are being challenged to lighten up their favorite recipes using at least one California dairy product as an ingredient in recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, side dish, snack, appetizer or dessert. 

Real California Milk and dairy products are sold nationwide and can be identified with the Real California Milk or Real California Cheese seals on packaging. California is the number one dairy state in the U.S., producing more butter, milk and ice cream than any other state. California is number two in cheese and yogurt production. 

I decided to lighten up one of my favorite desserts, frozen yogurt.  I love this recipe.  Sweet, creamy frozen yogurt that is actually healthy.  Yes, you heard right!  HEALTHY!
  The girls asked me to turn it into milkshakes for them.  

Fat Free Mixed Berry Frozen Yogurt
Makes approximately 2 quarts (8 - 1/2 cup servings) 
Calories:  99
Fat:  0.2
Carbs:  15.5
Sugar:  13.3
Protein:   8.5

Ingredients
.5 cup skim milk
.25 cup fat-free dry milk
2 T sugar
2 t plain gelatin
1.33 cup skim milk
2 cups mixed berries {I used a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries}
.66 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
2 cups California fat free plain Greek yogurt


Directions

1. In mixing bowl combine .5 cup skim milk and dry milk
2. Put bowl and beaters in the freezer for 30-45 minutes.
3. While the bowl is in the freezer puree strawberries with the sugar. {you can leave some out and dice them if you'd like some chunks}  Set aside
4. Bring the bowl out of the freezer and beat on high until it reaches soft peak.  Add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Refrigerate until ready to use
5. In a saucepan combine gelatin and 1.33 cups of milk.  Let it sit for 1 minute then cook over low heat until gelatin dissolves.  Set aside
6. Combine strawberries, gelatin, vanilla and yogurt.  
7. Fold in whipped dry milk.
8. Freeze in an ice cream maker and place in freezer for at least 1 hour

What's your favorite warm weather dessert?  

I received a gift card to offset the expense of my ingredients. By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.

An InLinkz Link-up

Soft and Squishy!

Every Thursday Sunny and I make a different type of treat for Ken's work.  Normally it's cupcakes or cookies but, occasionally we switch it up and make something totally different.  I had been wanting to try making marshmallows for a while now.  So we made some for Baking Thursday.

They were alot simpler than I expected.  Sunny did everything that didn't include the stove.  She added all the ingredients to the pot before it went on the stove, she added the geletin and the water to the mixer, turned it on, and cut out the shapes.

I couldn't find my heart cookie cutter so we decided on stars.  

Strawberry Marshmallows
Reposted from:  Martha Stewart's Strawberry Marshmallows

Ingredients
4 envelopes (1 box) unflavored geletin
2.5 cups sugar
.66 cups strawberry jelly (I actually used sugar free raspberry preserves any flavor will do)
.66 cup corn syrup

Directions

Do you bake or cook with your kids?  Do they like it?  What do you guys make together? 

Samantha Birthday Cake Recipes and Birthday Recap

The initial plan for today was a trip to the zoo {hello calorie burner!} but, due to yucky weather we had to change our plans.  I am the Queen of Plan B.  I always have a plan B especially for activities that are going to be outdoors.

Buddie had an appointment to be neutered today so our day started early because his drop-off was scheduled for 8:15. Breakfast was a special raspberry coffee cake. After we dropped off Buddie I surprised Mo by picking up Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 so we could have lunch and a movie.  The movie was really cute.  I'm thinking there will be a movie themed dinner in the future.

After the movie we headed over to the Allure European Day Spa.  They were awesome with the girls.  Each of the girls got a manicure, pedicure, hair cut and the stylist even did a really cute braid for each one.  

When we got home I started on dinner.  Mo decided that she wanted tacos for her birthday dinner.  I used Boca soy crumbles for the "meat" and seasoned it using Mrs. Dash Taco Seasoning.  I also made taco shrimp using baby shrimp.  I seasoned it with chili powder, paprika, onion powder, minced garlic and cumin.  It worked really well.  After dinner was cake a presents.  Mo is obsessed with One Direction and panda bears {do you know how hard it is to find things with pandas on them?}  Her cake was a panda bear cupcake cake with I love 1D written on it.  She asked for half of her cupcakes to be chocolate and the other half to be strawberry.  I was really amazed at how well BOTH of these recipes worked.  The chocolate cake was just as moist as a tradional full fat cake and the strawberry cake tasted like strawberry ice cream.  I did the standard Cool Whip frosting.  The recipe for all 3 are below.  

Mo had a great day.  Here are all the pictures from the day:

Chocolate Cake
adapted from Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake Recipe

1.5 cups sugar
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
.25 cup cornstarch
.75 cup HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
egg substitute/egg whites equivilent to2 eggs
1 cup skim milk
.5 cup pureed zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325.  Grease muffin tins.  (The recipe says it makes between 28 and 30 cupcakes)
2. Mix together dry ingredients.
3. In a separate bowl mix egg substite/egg whites, milk, zucchini and vanilla
4. Stir wet ingredients into dry
5. Pour in water and blend well
6. Put batter into muffin tins and bake for 30-35 minutes
7. Cool  in pan for 10 minutes then finish cooling on a rack. 

•  

Strawberry Cake

Adapted From Paula Deen's 1-2-3-4 Cake Recipe

1.5 cup sugar
2.5 cup flour
.5 cup cornstarch
1.5 T baking powder 
1 cup strawberry puree
egg substitute/ egg whites equivilent to 4 eggs
1 cup skim milk
1 t strawberry extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease 24-30 muffin tins
2. Mix together dry ingredients
3. In a separate bowl mix your wet ingredients
4. Stir your wet into your dry
5. Fill muffin tin 3/4 full and bake for 30-35 minutes.
6. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then place on a rack to finish cooling

Frosting

8 oz Cool Whip

1 package Pudding

1 cup milk

Directions

1. Whisk together milk and pudding mix
2. Fold in Cool Whip
3. Place in fridge for atleast 30 minutes before using.

How do you celebrate your kids' birthdays?

The Possibilities of Pudding

Simple, healthy, low calorie dessert.  Those words aren't found together very often are they?  I always bounce around with my favorite dessert.  For a month it will be fruit with cream, another month it's broiled bananas, another month it's something else.

My new favorite dessert is pudding.  Simple packaged pudding.  It's light in both calories and feeling, it's quick and it's really easy.  Best of all?  You can customize it to your liking.  Jello makes 8 different flavors of fat free, sugar free pudding mixes.  Jello's sugar free, fat free pudding has 80 calories in 1/2 a cup and even if you add 2 tablespoons of Fat Free Cool Whip you'll only add 15 calories.  So, for 95 calories you get a pretty substantial, yummy, cheap, easy dessert.  There's a different flavor for every mood.  I've listed some of my favorite flavor combinations below.  

Combinations

Chocolate 
Any berry (raspberries, strawberries, blackberries)
PB2
Bananas

Banana
Bananas
Cinnamon
Raspberries
Strawberries

Butterscotch
Rum extract

Cheesecake
Orange
PB2
Berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)

Pistachio
Cherries
Cranberries
Lemon

Vanilla
Bananas
Berries



Now that I've given you some examples get to the store and pick up some pudding!!  

Are there any flavor combinations I've forgotten?  What do you like to add to your pudding?

Christmas Cookies

Until last year I never did Christmas presents for the girls' teachers.  I don't know why but, I just didn't.  {Does that make me a horrible parent?}  But, last year I decided to do cookies for them. I figure that I would want edible gifts if I was a teacher.  {I mean seriously, how many "World's Greatest" or "#1 Teacher" mugs and knick-knacks does a teacher need?!??}

Last year I made "traditional" cookies, loaded with butter and sugar.  After the fact I decided that I wasn't being true to me by making them like that.  A vegan wouldn't buy eggs to make cookies with.  Someone who follows the Paleo diet probably wouldn't make non-Paleo cookies.  Why am I going to make cookies that I wouldn't even feed my kids??  I decided to alter all the cookies, except 1, to be low fat.  People love the flourless peanut butter cookies so I make them every time I need to bring cookies somewhere.  

Peanut Butter
From Martha Stewart
makes 16

Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
.75 cup sugar
1 egg
.5 t baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  
2. Mix together all ingredients
3. Roll 1 Tablespoon of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet
4. Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Rotate halfway thru.
5. Cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to cookie sheet. 

Chocolate Chip
From: Happy Herbivore Light & Lean
Makes 16

Ingredients
.33 cup plain applesauce
.5 cup brown sugar
1 t vanilla
.25 cup nonfat milk
1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1 T cornstarch
.5 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease cookie sheet
2. Combine all the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) in another.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet
4. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Drop on cookie sheet and bake 7-10 minutes.  Rotate halfway through.  

Oatmeal Raisin
Quaker Oatmeal "Raisin" Cookies
This recipe originally calls for chocolate chips but, I substituted raisins and dried cranberries for the chocolate chips
makes 5 dozen

Ingredients
2 cups pureed zucchini
1 cup brown sugar, packed
.5 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 t vanilla
1.75 cup flour
1 t baking soda
2.5 cup oatmeal
4 cups dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries)

Directions

1. Heat oven  to 375
2. Mix zucchini puree and sugars together
3. Add eggs, milk and vanilla
4. Mix in flour, baking soda, and oatmeal.
5. Fold in fruit
6. Drop by the tablespoon on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 9-11 minutes.

Banana Bread

Adapted From:  Cook This, Not That 350 Calorie Meals

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas (about 2 cups)

.75 cup Greek yogurt 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

.75 cup sugar (I start with .25 cups and figure out how sweet it needs to be)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.  (I used a 4 loaf mini pan)
2. Puree bananas, yogurt, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor
3. In a separate bowl mix together the remaining ingredients
4. Fold banana mixture into flour mixture
5. Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  The mini loaf pans take about 35-40 minutes  (if the top starts to brown before the inside is. done then put tin foil over the top) 

Do you have any good healthy cookie recipes?  Do you alter normal recipes to make them healthier?

Winter Squash Cakes. A Thanksgiving Post a Bit Late....Or Super Early

Okay, I know that this post comes quite a bit after Thanksgiving.  It got lost under some other posts.  But, this recipe is great any time of year in my opinion.  

The Saturday before Thanksgiving I found out about Ken's Thanksgiving potluck at work.  I decided that the most logical thing for me to bring would be the turkey cupcakes.  Can you imagine me trying to make a turkey after not cooking meat for over a year??!!??

I love it when flavor ideas automatically come to me.  2 seconds after I decided to do cupcakes my brain had already decided on flavors.  While I was writing the recipe for the post I decided to change my cupcakes into sheet cakes.  Fat free cupcakes do not like liners.  I really want these desserts to be special and pretty and......perfect.  As an added bonus sheet cakes are quicker and easier to frost.  Which is nice if you have alot of other dishes to do.  I'm doing 2 different Thanksgiving flavored {yes, now Thanksgiving is a flavor} cakes.  The first is a pumpkin cake with a pumpkin frosting.  I call it Pumpkin Palooza.  The second one is a sweet potato cake with a meringue frosting.  The recipe for both cakes are the same except you are using sweet potato in one and pumpkin in the other.

The cakes before I frosted them.  Pumpkin on top, sweet potato on the bottom

Sweet Potato Cupcakes 

2.5 cups + 2 T flour

.25 cups + 2 T cornstarch

2 cups sugar

2.5 t baking powder

1 cup milk

1 cup pumpkin/sweet potato

2 t vanilla

.75 cup egg substitute (equivalent to 4 eggs)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9x13 pan
2. Whisk together your dry ingredients 
3. In a blender or food processor blend your wet ingredients until smooth
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean 

Helpful hint:  I read that if you stick a metal decorating nail in the center of your cake it will bake evenly.

Pumpkin Cake Frosting

Ingredients

2 envelopes Dream Whip

2 (4 serving) packages of Pumpkin Pie Jello pudding mix

2.75 cup skim milk
.5 t vanilla

Directions

1. Mix Dream Whip with 1 cup of milk and vanilla in bowl of mixer
2. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes until light peaks form
3. Add milk and pudding mix
4. Mix on medium, then beat on high for 2 minutes
5. Let set for about 1 hour then frost cake

Sweet potato cake frosting

adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

1.5 cup sugar

2 T corn syrup

.25 cup water

6 egg whites

Directions

1. In a double boiler stir together everything until they reach 160 degrees on a thermometer
2. Beat using a stand (or electric hand) mixer on high until there are soft peaks.  {this should take 5-10 minutes depending on your mixer} add in 1 t vanilla near the end

Want to see what else the girls had for their Thanksgiving lunch?

Turkey, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese
a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie

And just in case I never showed you our Thanksgiving dinner:

Dunkin Donuts Blogger Event

I was invited to attend Dunkin Donuts menu tasting.  I was really excited because I had been invited to previous Dunkin events and I couldn't make them.  I brought along my taste testers because I wanted to be able to know what everything tasted like and let y'all know what's good.  

Dunkin Donuts recently brought out the Spicy Smoked Sausage breakfast sandwich.  All 3 of the girls and Ken enjoyed it.  This was actually surprising because Kaylee isn't a huge fan of things that are spicy.

Yey coffee!  The one thing I could try!  And try I did.  They have 4 flavors for the holiday season.  There's Red Velvet, White Chocolate, Peppermint Mocha and Eggnog.  The eggnog is ONLY available in select markets, such as Jacksonville - Palm Coast.  Lucky me!  Ken really enjoyed the Eggnog latte.  I was a fan of all of them.  I honestly don't think I've found a Dunkin flavor I HAVEN'T liked!

Next up, the donuts.  There are 3 holiday donuts.  The Red Velvet Drizzle {that Sunny is showing you} is a red velvet cake donut drizzled with cream cheese frosting.  The red  one {I forgot the name, oops!} is a yeast ring donut frosted with a cherry glaze.  And lastly the Holiday Star {that Kaylee is holding up} is a yeast star shaped donut frosted with green icing and filled with a Bavarian Kreme.

They were loved by all of my taste testers.  Ken liked the fact that the "red one" had a nice light cherry flavor.  It wasn't too overpowering.

It kind of upset me that I couldn't try any of the donuts.  I love donuts.  But, in typical Fat Free Queen style I came home and started baking.  I really wanted to give y'all a filled yeast donut but, I tried 4 different recipes and used 99% of my flour and nothing would work.  I guess yeast donuts are not meant to be fat free.  So instead, I bring you an AH-MAZING chocolate buttermilk cake donut hole.  I used my cake pop pan to make them but, you can also use a donut maker, a donut pan or a mini muffin pan.   I'm giving you the whole recipe but honestly, I only made a half batch.  At 25 calories each I wish I had made a full batch!

Chocolate Buttermilk Donut Holes
Adapted from Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake Recipe

Servings: 108
Calories: 25.6
Fat:  0.1 g

Carbs: 6 g
Sugar: 3.9 g
Protein: 0.6 g

Ingredients
1.75 cup flour
1 T cornstarch
2 cups sugar
.75 cup cocoa powder
2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 cup skim milk mixed with 2 tsp white vinegar
.5 cup fat free sour cream (you can also use Greek yogurt)
egg substitute to 2 eggs (or 2 egg whites
1 t vanilla extract
1 cup coffee

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray your pan
2. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder
3. In a separate bowl mix together milk, sour cream, egg substitute, vanilla and coffee
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry
5. Put 1 T into your cake pop pan and bake for 15 minutes until they are done.

Do you like coffee?  Do you enjoy seasonal flavors?  What's your favorite seasonal flavor?

Update 12/18/2013:  I found the notes I took at the event.  

• Did you know there is no non-dairy option at Dunkin Donuts?  
• The Red Velvet and Eggnog, Pumpkin Mocha and Red Velvet flavors will only be around until the end of December.  They will be bringing out a completely new flavor in January {I'm so excited!}
• The glazed donuts have less fat then the raised ones.  The cake soaks up less fat than the yeast.

Fancy Seeing You Here!

Hey guys!  Sorry I've been gone for the past 3 weeks.  This month hasn't been any fun for me.  The stress of life kind of sent me into a mini depression.  Ontop of that, the girls and I each were sick.  I wish that once, just once, all the kids would get sick at the same time.  Whatever it was that the girls had went from one kid to the next.  I didn't get a break from it for a week!I'm happy to say that I am stress-free, mentally clear, nobody is sick, and the house is back to normal (or atleast what's considered normal in the house.)

There is one thing that isn't normal though.  The fact that my body has decided it no longer wants to eat fish.  For the past 2 weeks I have been living off of egg substitute, egg whites, and Greek yogurt.  Does this bother me?  Honestly, no.  I actually really like eggs.  Plus they are an AMAZING source of protein.  1 cup of egg substitute and egg whites hava 26.6 grams of protein and only 133.25 calories.  1 cup of plain Greek yogurt has {roughly} 140 calories and 23 grams of protein.  

Before I get any comments on the fact that there are so many other protein sources available that are vegetarian let me explain something.  The only reason I haven't varied my protein much is because I haven't gone shopping.  

Yesterday Mo and Ken went to a Daddy-Daughter Dance at Mo's school yesterday.  

Even though it was a gloomy, drizzly evening they had a blast.

I forgot something important!  Today is the 21st!  The 21st is Recipe Redux reveal day.  The theme for this month was DIY mixes.  As soon as I read the prompt I knew EXACTLY what I was going to do for you.  Flourless chocolate Cookies.  These are some of the best, fat free cookies I make.    Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the mix.  But this is what they look like when you bake them. 

Cocoa Cookie Mix
Makes about 24 cookies

Ingredients
2.25 cups powdered sugar
.75 - 1 cup cocoa powder

1. Mix together the powdered sugar and cocoa in whatever container you are giving to your hostess

Directions for finishing the cookies
Ingredients
3 egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a cookie sheet
2. Add egg whites to mix
3. Drop 1 T batter onto cookie sheet.  Make sure they are nicely spread out or they will bake together
4.  Bake for about 8 minutes or until the tops start to crack.  
5. Cool on the pan

{You can also whip the egg whites and make them into a semi meringue type cookie.}
 
Nutritional Information
Calories: 55
Fat: 0.5 g
Carbs: 13.2 g
Sugar: 11.1 g
Protein: 1.3 g


Hope you {and whoever you give this mix to} enjoys!