Passionate Homemaking

Coconut Brown­ies topped with Coconut Ice Cream

One of the chal­lenges with eating a health­ier diet is that desserts have to go out the window. So I thought. White sugar and white flour are the main ingre­di­ents of most of those deli­cious desserts you see all over the place. As I have been elim­i­nat­ing these two ingre­di­ents over the last year or so, I have been on the hunt for making nutri­tious desserts that you cannot even tell are healthy. That’s what I always hated about healthy desserts…they just looked overly healthy and tasted so as well, and they incor­po­rated expen­sive ingre­di­ents. I am here to say that it is possible!

At our home we limit dessert to once a week. Friday nights I aim to serve a nice dessert to my hus­band. He really enjoys these treats! One of the best pur­chases I have made towards pro­vid­ing nutri­tious desserts is the pur­chase of an ice-​cream maker. This kitchen appli­ance is absolutely won­der­ful! No rock salts or any­thing added, simply plug it in, turn it on, and in 30 min­utes you have a batch of won­der­ful home­made ice cream. You con­trol the kind of milk, sweet­en­ers, and addi­tions, with­out addi­tives, preser­v­a­tives and all that other unhealthy and unknown addi­tions. I have made sev­eral won­der­ful fla­vors, includ­ing vanilla, straw­berry, coconut, peanut butter & choco­late, and pumpkin.

Over the next few weeks, I wanted to focus Tues­day Recipes on desserts. You want to join me? Here are a few of our favorite desserts for your enjoy­ment! The health­ier eating lifestyle doesn’t have to be so hard!

Coconut Brownies

An Edmonds Family recipe - thanks to my brother-​in-​law, Ben!

½ cup butter
1 cup rapadura ( or 2/3 cup honey and increase flour - I per­son­ally have not tried it with honey, so you will want to exper­i­ment!)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweet­ened cocoa powder (I have replaced half with carob powder)
½ cup whole wheat flour (increase if using honey)
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
¼ cup shred­ded coconut

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch square pan. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Com­bine all ingre­di­ents with a mixer and spread into the pre­pared pan. Bake for 25-30 min­utes. Do not over­cook. Top with home­made coconut ice cream!

Coconut Ice Cream

1 can (15 ou.) coconut milk
2 cups whole milk
1 cup cream
½ - ¾ cup maple syrup
2-3 Tbls. Coconut extract

Mix all ingre­di­ents together and flavor with maple syrup and extract to your taste. Always maker it sweeter than you think, because it looks some of that flavor in the freez­ing process. You can use all whole milk, but it gives a creamer tex­ture with part cream. Place in ice cream maker. For an icier ver­sion with­out the maker, you can simply freeze the mix and then serve.

Upcom­ing Recipes include the use of yummy berries, other great ice cream recipes, uses for extra milk, etc….please email me any suc­cess­ful nutri­tious dessert recipes you have made…love to share them!