Healthy desserts for a guilt-free sugar hit

When I relaunched this column a while back, I promised it would still feature recipes to keep the sweet-toothed happy – goodies, yes, but with a healthier take on the classics.

Nutritionists tell us that as far as the body is concerned, sugar is still sugar, whether it occurs naturally in fruit, or in highly manufactured concentration in certain substances such as corn syrup, which we can’t really consider a “good” food. But they would be equally keen to point out that you can’t compare berries with corn syrup. And you can’t.

But you need to be aware that things such as maple syrup, honey and coconut sugars, although less processed than something like high fructose corn syrup or caster sugar, is still sugar in terms of how your body deals with it.

But in my book, life would be a little less sparkly without the occasional treat. Sometimes I am torn about providing “healthy” treat recipes, likes the ones here, as spoon for spoon – from a sugar point of view – you might be no better or worse off with a scoop of Haagen Daz.

But I’ve provided plenty of truly bold recipes over the years and I do think that when we eat at home, we feel better using natural and less processed ingredients.

I know what you’re thinking – but that’s not baking as I know it – and you’d be right. It is different and, I think, all the better for it, as least nutritionally speaking. Most traditional baked goods are not exactly abounding in nutrients and vitamins, which makes them no less delicious or desirable of course, just not as kind to our bodies’ systems.

And with a better balance of ingredients comes the good news that you need to eat less of it to satisfy your cravings. Job done, I say.

So it was in this frame of mind that this week I made an attempt (okay, several attempts) at a banana ‘ice-cream’, where the cream part is made from cashew nuts. I was so impatient to get to the end result that I didn’t soak the nuts for as long as I should have, and amazingly, the sky didn’t fall in, the texture was just a bit grainier. I’d also run out of coconut oil so I used olive oil instead, and it still worked.

This recipe also allowed me to use up my store of over-ripe bananas consigned months ago to the freezer in a fit of waste-hate enthusiasm.

But ice-cream almost always needs a companion, something crunchy and/or warm to melt over, so I also made a comforting rhubarb clafoutis. I used coconut milk for the batter instead of ordinary milk, and coconut sugar instead of refined white sugar, though you could also use palm sugar or maple syrup. Either way, the end result is very tasty indeed.