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Christmas 2021 recipes: Christmas time is all about spreading cheer and spending time with your family and friends. As you give finishing touches to your festival decor and adorn your Christmas tree with beautiful lights, ribbons, baubles and other decorations, it's also the time to finalise your dessert menu.
While the festival is incomplete without sugary treats like cakes, cookies and puddings, the overload of these high-calorie sweets can make one gain oodles of weight. However, if you have resolved to maintain a healthy weight even during holiday season, you must be looking for low-calorie dessert options to make your Christmas celebrations as special as ever.
Here are some low-calorie dessert recipes for you that you may be tempted to try at home.
Maple Dates Bar
Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups finely chopped pitted dates
¾ cup water
⅓ cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
⅔ cup sugar free
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup regular oats
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Oil for greasing
Method:
* Combine dates, water, and maple syrup in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil; cook for 12 minutes or until most liquid is absorbed, stirring frequently. (Mixture will look like jam.) Stir in the rind; cool completely.
* Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
* Beat sugar free and butter with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.
* Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture (mixture will be crumbly). Press two cups of flour mixture into the bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking pan grease with cooking oil.
* Spread date mixture over flour mixture. Sprinkle it with remaining flour mixture. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Benefits of the recipe
Dates are an excellent substitute for sugar and help reduce heart attack risk besides being good for bones. They can energize you in winters and keep you warm. Storehouse of essential vitamins, minerals, fibre, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, copper and magnesium, dates also have both soluble and insoluble fibres to keep the digestive system smooth.
