Hi All,

Since most of us around the globe are locked down at home, I’m sure we’ll be piling on weight thanks to all the bored binge eating. So I decided to share a few of my favourite and really easy yet healthy dessert recipes for all those people with a sugar tooth but who are also trying to stay healthy.

Before we start, here are some disclaimers. I’m not a health expert or a nutritionist – so I can’t help you with the calories & nutrients in these recipes. But these are all sugar-free, flour-free, eggless recipes. Additionally, I really want to give the exact measures of items I use but all of my cooking is very intuitive, so work with the ingredients according to your tastebuds.

Recipe no. 1: Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

This is my go-to recipe for lunch/dinner when I’m too lazy to cook a whole meal. It’s the easiest dessert to make and requires no cooking skills. For this you’ll need:

• 1 cup oats (any oats works, I usually use instant oats but rolled oats will work too)
• 2 bananas
• 1/4 cup milk (add more if you want the consistency to be thinner. I usually like my smoothies to be thick.)
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter (try to use a sugarless/natural version)
• 1-2 teaspoon cocoa powder (the amount of cocoa depends on how chocolatey you want it)
• Nuts to garnish (I usually use only almonds but you can use whatever you like)
• Honey/Maple syrup (optional. So I usually just like the sweetness of the bananas but if you want to add a dash of extra sweetness add a teaspoon of either)

Method: Just blend everything together for 3-4 minutes in the blender. Add more milk depending upon the consistency you want to achieve. Once blended transfer to a cup/bowl and garnish with chopped nuts. This is such an easy but a filling and extremely tasty recipe. I’d say give it a try and then vary the proportions according to the flavours you want to bring out most.

Recipe no. 2: Apple Cinnamon Mug Cake

I recently discovered this 10minutes easy fix cake that tastes heavenly! I’ve been making this everyday for the past few days. You can find the original recipe on Nible & Dine. I usually look up regular recipes such as this one and modify to make it healthier. Here is the recipe –

Ingredients from the original recipe (I’ve mentioned the substitutes below):

Substitutions I made – instead of regular flour I used oat flour (ground oats basically). Instead of sugar I used honey in the same quantity.

Recipe:

Follow the above recipe with the substitutions to make it healthier. It took mine less than 2 minutes to bake completely. This cake tastes amazing! Definitely give it a try.

Recipe 3: Chocolate lava cake in a mug

So I came across a lot of these chocolate cakes in a mug recipes and decided to play with the recipe to make a healthier version.

Ingredients (substitute mentioned below):

Substitutes: oat flour instead of flour, honey instead of sugar and dark chocolate pieces instead of choco-chips.

Instructions – mix all the dry ingredients other than the chocolate in a bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry in ingredients and mix well. Once mixed drop the chocolate pieces into the batter and push them to the middle. Microwave this recipe for 1.5 minutes (Till it leaves the sides of the bowl).

This is such an easy yet amazing recipe and add a lot of dark chocolate to make it even more fun!

Recipe no. 4: Overnight chia seeds pudding

This has been my go-to dessert recipe for years now. I generally try to eat healthy on most days but I have a crazy sweet tooth. This recipe works wonders in craving my sweet tooth.

Ingredients: 3-4 tablespoons of chia seeds, 1/2 cup of milk (depends on how thick you want your pudding to be), fruits of your choice (works best with mango, berries, banana, pineapple) or cocoa

Instructions: Mix the chia seeds with milk and stir the mixture for 5-6minutes to make sure there are no lumps. Keep this mixture in the fridge for a minimum of 30mins or preferably overnight if you plan to have it for breakfast. If you plan to keep it for a lesser period of time, make sure to stir the mixture for longer. When you take out the mixture from the fridge you’ll see that the chia seeds have absorbed the milk and become globular. This is the base for the pudding. To this I prefer to add a cut fruit of my choice and some nuts. But you can puree the fruit and add the puree to it too.

For more fun variation you can add cocoa and honey to the chia mixture before keeping in the fridge. Once cooled top it with bananas for an amazing treat.

You can mix and match flavours with peanut butter, jam and other options! Do give this recipe a try – it’s amazing, simple and extremely healthy!

Recipe no. 5: Chocolate chips oats pancakes

Another recipe that I saw online and decided to play with to make a healthier version of.

Ingredients –

1/2 cup oat flour; 1 banana; 1/4th cup milk; 1/4 Tsp baking soda, pinch of salt, oil for the pan, chocolate chips

Instructions – in a bowl mix oat flour, baking soda and salt. Add the banana and milk to a processor to make a puree. Add this puree to the dry ingredients and mix till they’re no lumps. The mixture should be a thick pancake mixture. If you feel like it’s gotten runny, add more oat flour. Heat a pan and spread a light layer of oil/butter on it. Keep the heat on medium to avoid burning the pancakes. Add choco-chips to the pancake batter at this point to make sure they don’t melt in the batter. Take an ice cream scoop amount of batter and spread it evenly on the pan. Cover the pancake for 30-40 seconds to ensure it cooks evenly. Once you see bubbles appear all over the pancake – turn it. Cook it for 15-30 seconds on the other side and your pancake is done. You can serve it with honey/maple syrup/nutella/bananas/peanut butter.

Please note: banana sweetness works well for me but if you want your pancakes to be a little sweeter please add some honey to the batter.

These are some of my current favourite recipes. Since the lockdown has extended in my country, I will keep experimenting and sharing more recipes. Do try these out and let me know how you liked them! Again, I’m not a nutritionist so I’m not sure about the calories/nutrients in these recipes.

Stay safe!