Two easy fruity healthy dessert recipes (2024)

A delicious meal is great, but a dessert is even better. A handful of fresh fruits, few biscuits, a little yogurt or cottage cheese and you are in for a refreshing and healthy treat everyday. Dessert recipes that are easy on the stomach are preferred anytime in my home to heavy & creamy ones. Nothing is more rewarding than to see my children appreciating & preferring these home made healthy desserts over store bought ice creams.

These two desserts are now a regular feature on our dinner table, just that the fruits and the biscuit/cornflakes base keep changing to bring in more variation in the recipes. Cottage cheese and yogurt give that feathery touch and extra freshness to the recipes.

I like the lightness of yogurt and the airy feel of crumbled cottage cheese in my desserts. The creamy texture of home made paneer as against the hard and rubbery store bought paneer is in no comparison when making Paneer tikkas or Paneer koftas. Here is how I make Cottage cheese at home. Yogurt used for making desserts are normally set the previous night. I add a little sugar and milk powder to warm milk before setting the curd to get creamy and thick yogurt.

Easy to prepare and elegant to serve, these beauties have made me win many accolades from family and friends already. Say yes to desserts… you know why 🙂

1. Mango Cottage Cheese Mousse

Ingredients;

• 1 cup crumbled Cottage cheese
• 1 cup thick mango puree
• 10-12 Almonds/Pine nuts
• 4 tbsp. sugar/honey
• Chocolate chips
• 10-12 digestive biscuits
• 10-12 Almonds
• 1 tbsp. butter/Olive oil

Method; Peel and chop two mangoes. Grind almonds or pine nuts into fine powder.

Blend mango pieces and cottage cheese with granulated sugar to make puree. Reserve a little mango puree for garnish.

To make home made Cottage Cheese check this link here.

Grind the biscuits with almonds coarsely in a blender with butter.

In a large bowl and add mango & cottage cheese puree, almond/pine nut powder and mix well.

Take small serving bowls or glasses and add a tablespoon of coarsely ground biscuit. Pour a ladle of mango mousse over it and add another layer of biscuit. Finish it with mango mousse, a little fresh mango pulp and a few chocolate chips.

Refrigerate the Mango Mousse for 3-4 hours and serve chilled.

These desserts are a perfect way to include fruits, cottage cheese and yogurt in your diet. Colourful fruits and chocolate added to the recipe makes it more attractive. Serve this healthy Mango Cottage Cheese Mousse chilled to round off your dinner.

2. Nectarine Yogurt Parfait

Nectarine are smaller than peaches and are more firmer than the fuzzy skinned peaches. A dear blogger friendSraintroduced me to these ruby red beauties when she brought some for me, and from then Nectarine is a regular in my fruit basket.

Ingredients;

• 1 cup thick yogurt
• 1 cup chopped Nectarine
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp. milk
• 1 tsp Agar-agar
• 4 tbsp. cornflakes
• 10-12 Almonds
• 2 tbsp. butter/Olive oil

Method; Yogurt which is thick and creamy such as Greek yogurt works well for this recipe. Normally I set yogurt at home for making desserts such as Mousse or cheesecake by adding a few spoons of milk powder to plain milk before setting the curd.

I prepared these yogurt Parfait for a friend on a casual visit and could not set the yogurt before. I used store bought yogurt for this recipe which was thick and creamy.

To a tbsp. of warm milk add 1 tsp. of agar-agar or china grass powder and stir to mix well.

Wash and finely chop Nectarine or Peaches if you wish.

Grind cornflakes and almonds with butter into coarse powder.

Combine chopped Nectarine, yogurt, powdered sugar, agar-agar with milk in a bowl and stir all the ingredients to mix well.

Take small serving bowls or glasses and add a tablespoon of biscuit mix and pour 2-3 tbsp. of yogurt mixture over it. Add another layer of biscuit and finish it with yogurt and Nectarine Mousse.

Agar gives a firmness to the recipe.You can completely avoid using agar in this recipe if your yogurt is thick and holds good.

Use your creativity to present these simple yet exotic looking healthy desserts and get ready to hear all the compliments coming your way.

Notes;

1. Avoid sugar if the mangoes are too sweet.
2. Add a dash of lemon juice if the mangoes are sweet.
3. If you are using Greek yogurt which is thick and creamy, you could avoid agar-agar in 2nd recipe.
4. Use flavored biscuits to make the base, ginger/cinnamon or cardamom favored biscuits will make a delicious Mousse base.
5. Replace sugar with honey or agave for more healthier recipes.
6. Use crushed Muesli in place of biscuits to make the base of these desserts.
7. You can use any fruit of your choice for both the recipes.

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