| Luck be a Pudding | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we lightened an Irish bread pudding that was heavier than the Blarney stone. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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She may not be Irish. But when the local paper published a recipe for Irish Bread Pudding With Caramel-Whiskey Sauce, Julie Kwan of Sherman Oaks, California, was practically drooling. "It sounded so good. I thought it would be a perfect way to use the leftovers from my bread machine," she says. Then she read the fine print. Just one serving carried 100 grams of fat and 1,456 calories. "Although I don't have any health problems, I would never make that heavy of a dessert," says Kwan, who asked if we could lighten it. The Challenge: For a dessert that serves six, the recipe called for 4 cups of cream, a cup of butter, and 8 eggs. Since we couldn't find any leprechauns in the immediate vicinity (they're never around when you need them), we had to rely on our own magic. First, we reduced the immense serving size. Next, we cut down on the amount of eggs and substituted a combination of evaporated skim milk and 1 percent low-fat milk for the cream. Then we made our whiskey sauce with light butter, 1 percent low-fat milk, and 1ò3-less-fat cream cheese instead of cream and butter. In so doing, we were able to cut the calories in half, shave off more than 43 grams of fat, and drop the cholesterol from 307 milligrams to only 57. The Results: Even though Kwan says she's thrilled by the numbers, it's the uncompromised taste that has her coming back for more. She may not be Irish, but her eyes are smiling. BEFORE | AFTER Calories per Serving Fat Percent of Total Calories Cholesterol | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Day 17
