Pucker Up Buttercup! Lemon-o-licious Low Carb Desserts for Mother’s Day

 This Mother’s Day, Budget Low Carb is all about the lemon. Show Mom you love her with a special dessert for less than 10g of net carbohydrates per serving. It’s even more special when these desserts come in under $10 for a family of 4 and won’t leave a sour expression on Mom’s face!

Make Mom a simple low-carb meal, such as grilled or pan-seared halibut with fennel and roasted tomatoes (see Dana Carpender’s recipe in Dana’s Kitchen—available in the April Issue of CarbSmart Magazine on sale now at the iTunes newsstand) along with a green salad—perfect! And since we’re talking BLC, if your budget doesn’t stretch to halibut, Dana’s recipe works fantastically with a more budget-friendly fish such as cod, scrod, tilapia, pangasius, or haddock! Any white-fleshed fish works great.

Finish the meal with one of the following BLC-friendly lemon desserts and you’ll “truly” feed your Mom from the soul and nourish her with health this Mother’s Day. If you had to choose between a box of pre-made chocolates or gorgeous lemon cakes, or perhaps, lemon custard with gingersnap crust and a dollop of lemon curd…well we know the choice our CarbSmart staffers made! Pucker up, buttercup!

Low-Carb Raspberry Lemon Cakes Recipe

Low-Carb Lemon Curd Recipe

Lemon Berry Custard with Gingersnap Crusts

Serving Size: 1 ramekin             Yields: 6 ramekins
Preparation Time: 15 Minutes (If gingersnaps and lemon curd are made ahead)
Total Time: 45 Minutes

A simple and delicious dessert. The lemon custard is fantastic on its own, but add the gingersnap crust and a dollop of lemon curd, and the entire dessert becomes worthy of rave reviews.

Ingredients

For Crusts:

• 12 servings Gingersnaps (Recipe Follows), or ground walnuts or almond flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar equivalent, powder after measuring
• 1 tablespoon coconut flour – Bob’s Red Mill
• ¼ cup unsalted butter — melted

For Custard:

• 3 cups heavy cream
• 1 ½ tablespoons lemon zest — about 1 1/2 lemons zested
• ½ cup sugar equivalent, powder after measuring
• 1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 quarts hot water

For Garnish:

• 12 raspberries
• 6 tablespoons Low Carb Lemon Curd (Recipe Follows)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Place oven rack in center of oven.
2. In a food processor or blender, crumble gingersnaps and pulse into crumbs. (Note: Cookies need to be crisp to form crumbs. You may need to place them back into the oven and re-bake for about 3-5 minutes. Remove and cool on wire racks, then make crumbs with them.)
3. Add melted butter, coconut flour and 1 tablespoon sugar equivalent. Pulse to combine.
4. Divide crumbs between 6 ramekins. Press firmly into the bottoms and about ½ inch up the sides. Bake crusts at 350° for 5-8 minutes, until crusts are set. Remove and cool completely—about 30 minutes.
5. Turn oven down to 325°.
6. Using a microplane, finely grate the zest of 2 lemons, about 1 ½ to 2 heaping tablespoons. Juice and strain lemons and reserve (about 1-2 lemons).
7. In heavy, medium saucepan, over medium heat, combine heavy cream, lemon zest, sweetener, and salt. Stir with a spatula until sugar dissolves. Don’t whisk. You don’t want to introduce air into the cream. Heat cream until you see whiffs of steam start to rise, you may even see small bubbles forming around the sides of the pan. The sweetener will be dissolved.
8. While cream heats, beat eggs with a whisk until frothy (about a minute). Slowly whisk cream into egg yolks. Add vanilla extract and lemon juice. Strain custard with a fine mesh strainer to remove any egg pieces, shell, and lemon zest. The texture needs to be smooth. Divide custard between the 6 ramekins.
9. Place ramekins onto baking pan into a large roasting pan on the middle rack of oven. Pour in enough hot water to come about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake until custard is just set but still wiggly in the center–about 30-45 minutes.
10. Remove custards from water bath when done. Cool completely. Wrap tightly with plastic and chill a minimum of 4-6 hours or up to 2-3 days. They’re better the second day.
11. Top with berries and serve immediately!

Per Serving: 705 Calories; 71g Fat (88.2% calories from fat); 10g Protein; 11g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 9g Net Carbohydrate

Serving Ideas: A glass of champagne would be fabulous with this dessert, as would a gorgeous cup of coffee.

Susie T’s NOTES: While the low carb gingersnap crust and lemon curd are optional, they add so much definition to this gorgeous lemon custard. I highly recommend making gingersnaps and lemon curd ahead and storing them in the freezer for future use. The snaps are based on Dana Carpender’s TNT recipe.

Gingersnaps

Yields: 42   Cookies
Preparation Time: 20 Minutes
Total Time: 60 Minutes (not including chilling time)

Delicious and crispy. Perfect on their own or to replace graham crackers in crumb piecrust. This recipe is morphed from Dana Carpender’s TNT gingersnap recipe. Thanks, Dana!

Ingredients

• ½ cup sesame seeds
• ½ cup rolled oats, gluten-free, old-fashioned long cooking (Bob’s Red Mill)
• ½ cup pumpkin seeds, hulled and unsalted
• ¼ cup unsalted butter
• ½ cup coconut oil
• 1 cup sugar equivalent, powder after measuring
• 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white
• 1 cup vanilla whey protein isolate (I like Designer Whey brand)
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves

1.  Grind sesame seeds, pumpkin seed kernels and rolled oats to flour consistency in a clean coffee grinder or blender.
2. With an electric mixer, “cream” the butter, coconut oil, sweetener and molasses until light and fluffy. Add whole egg and egg white until creamy and well combined.
3. Mix nut and oat flour with vanilla whey protein powder, baking soda and spices. Add dry ingredients into wet and mix until well combined. Chill dough for about 30-45 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350°. Dough will be soft but will hold a shape. Spoon by scant tablespoons and form balls. Place on parchment lined baking sheet about 2 ½ inches apart–cookies will spread. Bake 7-9 minutes or until just starting to turn golden around the edges. Cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container.

Per Serving: 60 Calories; 5g Fat (72.8% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 2.14g Carbohydrate; .5g Dietary Fiber; 1.64g Net Carbohydrates.

Susie T’s NOTES: Dana’s original recipe called for 1 cup of almond meal. It will give you the best texture and taste, but if you are allergic to almonds, or you simply feel like playing around with a slightly different flavor, substitute the sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and gluten-free oats blended to flour. The flavor is very good and quite different, but not as good as Dana’s Gingersnaps.

They work great in pie crusts to replace graham crackers. Keep them made up and frozen so you can grab them quickly for crumb crusts or for a bite of gingersnap with a spoon of lemon curd. Delicious and easy!

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