Kathryn Bruton - Skinny Dessert

I believe with all of my heart that dessert should not feel like you are on a diet of any kind. A dessert should be indulgent, decadent, sweet and satisfying, in essence, a moment of extravagance, a moment to let loose and indulge without the burden of considering its impact on your waistline. However, there must be a best of both worlds compromise recipes for desserts that are all we desire them to be, but without a humongous calorie count. Importantly, for me feel satisfied, this had to be possible without sacrificing any of the good stuff. I want each recipe to be enjoyed, safe in the knowledge that they are indeed low calorie, but on the surface not appearing to be. So while you are enjoying a white chocolate Creme brle or a rich and decadent chocolate mousse cake, you are not thinking that it is lacking something. Instead, you are simply enjoying how utterly delicious it is, wondering how on earth it could possibly be under 300 calories.

While writing this book, I short listed traditional recipes to redesign as well as hundreds of ideas for new ones. All that made the cut have had every ingredient endlessly considered. To bring the calorie counts down it was necessary to play around with quantities of high offenders such as butter, sugar, cream, chocolate to substitute lower calorie ingredients or decrease the quantities. Take is one traditionally made with double cream, but I gave it a whirl with natural yogurt and it was simply perfect. Some might even prefer its lighter, sharper flavour. I adore chocolate brownies who doesnt? But they must be molten, sticky and almost impossibly chocolatey, and most likely calorie laden per mouthful. But, when teamed with a meringue base you get the best of both worlds with less than 300 calories!

When it comes to ingredients, I have not used either artificial sweeteners nor alternative sugars and flours. I dont cook with these on a day to day basis, so how to use them well is far from my area of expertise. And when it comes to desserts, I will often feel the desire to bake when I am using ingredients that are likely to be knocking around my kitchen already. My most desirable puddings are those made with classic ingredients such as butter, plain flour, sugar, butter, cream, eggs and chocolate, to name but a few, but with clever tweaking.

Day to day, calories are a small portion of what I feel makes a meal. Above all, it needs to be nutritionally balanced, and when the time calls for it, low calorie. When it comes to dessert, I am the kind of person who often throws caution to the wind and allows plenty of room for indulgence. It is not always a time to think about being nutritionally good, and these recipes offer the perfect middle ground all the indulgence, none of the penance.

I have never had the most amazingly equipped kitchen for baking, and have generally fumbled by on very little. There are a few recipes in this book that require some select purchases, such as the . However, the basics that will see you through many recipes in this book are: a tried and tested free-standing electric mixer, a handheld whisk, bowls, spatulas and, a must-have, digital weighing scales. I dont estimate teaspoon and tablespoon measures, and will never fail to rely on my measuring spoons. Even when I think I know the correct quantity by eye, I am generally wrong, and such discrepancies can be the difference between a recipe succeeding and it failing. As far as cake tins and trays go, I have a few 20cm and 24cm (8in and 9 in) round spring-form tins, a couple of 20cm (8in) round cake tins and two Swiss roll tins. I have a selection of mini loose-based fluted tart tins, and a few larger ones. In short, dont be daunted if you feel ill-equipped to bake; the chances are that you are more prepared than you think you are.

Medium and large eggs are used throughout the book. It is not necessarily one size fits all, so pay attention when reading recipes. There are some recipes that use raw eggs (such as the ). Always use the freshest organic free-range eggs for such recipes, and be careful to not add these to an entertaining menu if you are catering for a lady who is pregnant.

When making meringues, I often find that I have a surplus of egg yolks, which I have great intentions of using, store in the fridge, and then inevitably forget about. Most big supermarkets now sell egg whites in cartons, which are enormously useful.

You can buy vanilla in many different forms: essence, paste, extract and, its most natural (and expensive) form, pods. Throughout this book, I use mostly pods. At times, you may see the use of vanilla bean paste, which in my mind is the next best thing to a pod, and more cost-effective. However, none of the aforementioned substitutes really match up to the depth of flavour you can achieve by scraping seeds directly from a moist, aromatic pod. When making desserts or baking, vanilla pods can be one of your greatest expenses, but are worth every penny, so splash out whenever you feel you can justify it you wont regret it. To get a bit more bang for your buck, save the pods and store in a jar with some caster sugar. The flavour will infuse and you will have an intensely flavoured vanilla sugar to play around with. I also quite like adding them to bottles of spirits whisky, brandy and rum all take well to a bit of vanilla. When removing the seeds from a pod, use a small, sharp knife to cut down the length of the pod, cleanly cutting it in half. Then use the tip of the knife to carefully scrape out the seeds.

As a rule, I always opt for a 70 per cent cocoa solids content when I cook with dark chocolate. More importantly, I wont skimp on quality. There are lots of great chocolate brands that now produce really good-quality dark chocolate. Some are more expensive than others, but in general, you get what you pay for in terms of quality and flavour. Chocolate takes centre stage in its very own chapter here, and using top-notch stuff will really make a difference to the recipes.

There are certain recipes in this book that list decoration ingredients as optional. This is mostly where the addition of this extra ingredient will tip the calorie count over the 300 mark, but equally where the final dish will not actually suffer without it. In these instances, the decision is yours as to whether or not you go all out. I would advise it it will never be much more than 300 calories, which is still a low calorie count for a pudding!