REVIEW OF THE HEALTHY INDULGENCES COOKBOOK


REVIEW OF THE HEALTHY INDULGENCES COOKBOOK

Firstly one is greeted by the most mouthwatering slice of chocolate cake imaginable on the cover!  That’s just the beginning.  There are 60 plus low-carb, sugar-free, gluten-free recipes in Lauren Benning’s cookbook.  Lauren is a university student and she blogs part time as much as possible on her popular blog: healthyindulgences(dot)net.  Most of us in the low-carb community know Lauren as a talented, creative baker who also happens to be a great food stylist and photographer – this all in her twenties!  That amazes me no end.  Lauren states in her introduction that her parents encouraged her creative talents from a young age, so she had a great head start!

The clickable Table of Contents/Index is fantastic for navigating through the cookbook.  To start with there are several introductions such as the ingredients you will use in your baking (always illustrated), 10 cardinal rules for sugar-free baking and 10 cardinal rules for baking with gluten-free, low-carb flours.

This cookbook features the very best of Lauren’s Healthy Indulgences recipes and for that reason alone even, you want this cookbook handy.  The contents are divided into Bread and Cereal Indulgences, Savory Indulgences, Dairy and Ice Cream Indulgences, Cake and Cookie Indulgences, Cheesecake and Mousse Indulgences, Pie Indulgences, Candy Indulgences, and miscellaneous Bonus recipes!


A few of Lauren’s recipes will use small amounts of honey, molasses or bananas to enhance flavor and texture, however, most of the recipes are sugar-free and her preference is stevia, erythritol and sometimes a little xylitol. She occasionally uses some oat flour or millet flour in conjunction with other low-carb "flours" to get superior baking results. All recipes are less than 10 grams net carbs per serving.  

I find her recipes easy to read with beautiful photos as we have come to expect from Lauren. Let me mention just a few of them: Chocolate Granola Cereal, English Muffins, Fluffy Biscuits, Better-than-Wendy’s Chili, Indian Chicken Curry, Easy Ice Cream Bars, Chocolate Hard Shell Topping, Pumped-Up Chocolate ice Cream, Sugar-free Red Velvet Cake, Molten Chocolate Cake, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, Vanilla Cupcakes with a Secret, Decadent Chocolate Pots De Crème, Creamy Blueberry Cheesecake Bars, Strawberry Mousse, Sugar-Free Key Lime Pie, Sugar-Free Buckeye Candies and Truffles, Low-Carb Peanut Butter Cups and Old-Fashioned Cake Donuts.The e-book is $5.99 and as a PDF, $7.95 as a Kindle Version.  You can acquire a copy of this fabulous cookbook through this link: http://healthyindulgences.net/get-the-e-book/

Do check out Lauren's recent post for Thanksgiving:  A virtual POTLUCK.