There is no reason for you to deprive yourself of the simple pleasure of indulging in desserts, just because of your weight loss program. Many easy ways allow you to change your favorite desserts into healthy desserts. One simplest trick is to make desserts that allow the use of fresh fruits. They are naturally sweet and low in calories. Another useful trick is to use low fat cottage cheese or ricotta as much as possible. There are plenty of other tricks, which prove to be very helpful in weight loss. Here is a simple low fat recipe for the famous Mexican caramel cream cheese custard that is both delicious and low in calories.
Ingredients:
- Sugar- 1/2 cup
- Low fat cream cheese or cottage cheese- softened, 8 oz
- Eggs- 8
- Non-fat or low fat sweetened condensed milk- 1 can (14 oz)
- Non- fat or low fat milk powder- 1 can (12 oz)
- Vanilla extract- 2 tsp
- Water- 2 tablespoons
Procedure:
- First, preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
- In a large bowl, beat the cream or cottage cheese until it is soft. Now, beat the eggs into the cheese, one at a time, and beat the mixture thoroughly. Now add the condensed milk, milk powder, and vanilla and beat. Now keep aside the mixture while you make the caramel.
- For the caramel, put the sugar and water in a pan and heat over a medium flame. Swirl the pan but do not stir the mixture. Do this about 7- 8 minutes until the mixture is a golden- brown color. Your caramel is ready. Put this immediately into a 9-inch cake pan.
- Now carefully add the beaten cheese mixture into the cake pan, over the hot caramel. You will hear some cracking because of the different temperatures of the two mixtures, but that is fine.
- For baking, place this cake pan into a larger pan. Pour hot water in-between the two pans (into the larger pan) until it is about an inch high. Bake the mixture in the oven until it is golden, which should take about an hour. The center will still be shaky. To check if the flan is done, pierce a knitting needle or a knife into the center and take out. It should come out clean.
- For cooling, remove the flan from the oven and let it cool down to room temperature, and then refrigerate it overnight. Keep the cake pan covered while in the refrigerator.
- For serving, run the edges of the pan with a knife to separate the flan from the pan. Cover the top of the flan with a plate and then invert the pan upside down to remove the flan into the plate. The caramel topping should be perfectly set.