Two healthy and surprising dessert recipes… with vegetables!
Healthier, melting, rich in fiber and nutrients, as surprising as they are good, try the vegetable desserts! Follow the advice of our culinary chemist Raphaël Haumont.
Written on
The Mag of Health – France 5
And if you dare the pastries… with vegetables? These desugared pastries are rich in fiber and combine original flavors. The idea: make trios by mixing a vegetable, a fruit and a spice.
A soft lemon-parsnip
Let’s start with parsnips, which have a very high fiber value (5g per 100g). Parsnips are also rich in minerals (Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus…) and vitamins (B9, C, E). In the kitchen, parsnips are soft, slightly sweet and with lemon aromas because they contain limonene, an aromatic substance found in citrus fruits!
Its high fiber content will allow you to bind the preparations, and give texture. What works great with lemon is also cardamom if you have it. This trio is magical.
Work from an easy recipe, like pound cake. The traditional recipe is too fatty and too sweet. Lighten it by replacing half the sugar and half the butter with parsnips.
– Cook the parsnips in earl gray tea (very good with lemon), about 15 min. Failing that, cook it in water or steam it.
– Drain well.
– Form a puree and possibly dry a little in a saucepan over low heat.
– Let cool.
– Blanch the butter and sugar.
– Add the eggs.
– Finish with sprinkled flour and baking powder.
– Gently stir in the parsnip purée. Finish with two finely grated lemon zests.
– Add cardamom powder. Bake for 20 mins at 180°C then 20 mins at around 160°C.
This recipe can be made with other vegetables (pumpkin, butternut squash, carrot, zucchini, ground pear, celeriac, etc.) rich in fibre, therefore with an interesting binding power.
Zucchini/chocolate also work very well, carrot cake too. You can try lemon parsnip or celery, orange pumpkin, etc. and you will lower the amounts of fat and sugar.
An almond, beetroot and raspberry crumble
Another challenge: cooking a beetroot dessert. Its earthy taste repels more than one, while well cooked, it brings very pleasant flavors and a beautiful color of course.
On the health side, it contains fiber (2.5g/100g), naturally present betaine which helps digestion, and vitamins. Cook the beets in the pressure cooker. Warning: it’s a bit long, count 45 min. You can also buy beets already cooked, it will work very well. Above all, remove the skin well.
Analysis of beet flavors shows that it shares sapid molecules with strawberries, raspberries, rose, lychee. Obviously, it’s not the season for raspberries and strawberries, so don’t buy fresh fruit, grown in greenhouses thousands of miles away.
You can very well buy these frozen red fruits, or have them yourself frozen this summer at full maturity. They will lose their texture when cooked.
The bonus twist, is a round of pink berry and tailed pepper berry. It goes very well with red fruits.
– Grate the beetroot, count half beetroot, half raspberries and cooked apples for example
– Sprinkle with pepper
– Crush with a fork and spread in a gratin dish.
Cover with a “healthy” crumble dough:
– Take semi-complete flour, a little brown sugar, a little powdered almond
– Use this paste to cover the mixture of fruits and vegetables
– Bake for 15 minutes at 200°C.
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