beauty essentials

  

yield
Makes 6 to 8 servings
We used dried lavender in this syrup because it gives the syrup a lovely pale hue. Fresh lavender won't lend the same color, but it does give the syrup a more powerful floral flavor Cloud Provider.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 2 3/4 hr
Ingredients
For cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature for 30 minutes
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature

For blueberries in syrup:

3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons dried edible lavender flowers or 2 tablespoons fresh edible lavender flowers
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
10 oz blueberries (1 pt)

Special equipment: a 9- by 5- by 3-inch metal loaf pan

Preparation

Make cake:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter and flour loaf pan, knocking out excess flour ageLOC Me.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 5 with a handheld. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in zest and vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until just incorporated.

Spoon batter into loaf pan and bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out with crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes, then invert onto rack and cool completely.

Prepare blueberries in syrup:
Bring water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in lavender, then steep 30 minutes for dried lavender or 40 minutes for fresh. Pour syrup through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding lavender. Stir in lemon juice and blueberries.

Spoon berries and syrup over slices of cake just before serving.

Cooks' notes: • Cake can be made 1 day ahead and cooled completely, then wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or kept in an airtight container at room temperature. • Lavender syrup (without berries) can be made 2 hours ahead and kept, covered Nespresso, at room temperature. Add berries just before serving.  

You can cut back on added sweeteners—and still have your cake—thanks to a pastry chef's dessert recipes and a nutritionist's advice best travel tea mugs.
by Megan O. Steintrager

November Doable Challenges: Low Sugar

E ating too much sugar is linked to some of today's most prevalent health problems: diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, not to mention tooth decay. Overdoing it on sugary foods and drinks also contributes to overall poor nutrition by edging out healthier sources of calories. Sugar occurs naturally in fruit (fructose) and in milk products (lactose), yet the real culprit in sugar overconsumption is what's known as "added sugar"—sugars and syrups that are added not just to processed foods but also when cooking meals and desserts at home.
Recipes from Nick Malgieri's Perfect Light Desserts

Grilled Curried Mangoes with Ginger Ice Milk
Lemon Custard with Raspberry Sauce
Easy Chocolate Mousse

"Too much added sugar can displace a lot [of] more nutrient-dense foods that could do your body a whole lot of good," confirms Hillary Wright, a registered dietitian and author of The Prediabetes Diet Plan: How to Reverse Prediabetes and Prevent Diabetes Through Healthy Eating and Exercise. "We are really physiologically not well equipped to deal with years of overconsumption of refined sugars," she explains, saying that surges in sugar overwhelm the body's mechanisms that are designed to process it. This threatens the health of the general population of adults and children start business in hong kong, and not only those who are prediabetic or diabetic, emphasizes Wright.

Despite the well-documented risks, most of us are still consuming more added sugar than we should, primarily through packaged foods and drinks. Here are some of the usual suspects to watch for on food and drink ingredient lists: cane sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maltose, among others, as well as seemingly healthier sweeteners such as brown sugar, honey, molasses, and fruit juice concentrates. The most recent USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans estimate that the average American adult consumes 79 grams of added sugars (the equivalent of about 20 teaspoons of granulated sugar per day—320 calories' worth), and some experts believe consumption is even higher than that. Major health authorities vary on their recommendations for upper limits for added sugar (see the WHO/FAO independent report and the American Heart Association), but they all agree that your body doesn't need any added sugars. One thing is for certain: We are eating way too much of it.
More Light Desserts

Pumpkin Mousse Trifle
Chocolate Gelato
Pistachio-Cherry Crumble
Fruit Salad with Herb, Citrus, Mint-Maple, or Basic Syrup
Kiwi Lime Pie
Cocoa-Date Truffles
Strawberry Tarts with Ginger-Nut Crust
Pear-Cranberry Cobblers

Now for the good news: "Nobody's recommendations say, 'No sugar, period,'" Wright points out. "The recommendation is to moderate sugar intake." So this month's Doable Challenge is to cut back on added sugars in desserts and treats by reducing portions, modifying recipes, and, of course, eating sweets less frequently. This is surprisingly achievable, thanks to the practical tips below from Nick Malgieri, director of baking and pastry programs at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, author of numerous cookbooks, including Perfect Light Desserts: Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving and an Epicurious contributor. Even after he experienced his own diabetes scare a few years ago, Malgieri still wouldn't tell you to give up sugar—especially since he lost (and has kept off) 50 pounds and got his blood sugar under control, all without sacrificing desserts or resorting to artificially sweetened treats. Wright approves: "I'd rather people just try to deal with real sugar—just cut back the volume, see if you can retrain your taste buds, and then limit the times when you're eating too much sweet stuff to special occasions." Here's how to put that advice into action china company formation.


Focus on Fruit

Fresh, whole fruits and fruit salads contain fiber and have a low caloric density, so you can enjoy more of them for fewer calories. So when you're thinking about desserts with not as much added sugar, take advantage of fruit's natural sweetness. Fruit-based desserts—crisps and pies, fruit salads, or fruit that's been grilled, baked, or broiled—don't require a lot of sugar, especially when compared with treats such as cakes and cookies. Malgieri's Grilled Curried Mangoes with Ginger Ice Milk, for example, is "a substantial dessert" without a lot of calories and added sugar, he notes. He also points out that just a little sugar syrup with flavorings like vanilla, citrus, and liqueur, can take a simple fruit salad from everyday eats to special-occasion standout.

Another way Malgieri likes to keep the focus on the fruit is to serve a small piece of sponge cake or angel food cake (both relatively low in sugar and fat) with lightly sweetened strawberries and whipped cream on the side. Most pastry dough has a nominal amount of sugar, he notes, so pies and tarts—especially those made with a fruit filling that isn't overly sweetened—can be a good choice as well. "Just be sure the fruit you are using is really flavorful," he adds. Perfectly ripe, seasonal fruit needs very little added sugar, unlike, say, supermarket strawberries purchased out of season.

Get Into Dark Chocolate

To cut down on sugar (and calories) in many chocolate-based desserts, including pudding, fondue, mousse, and frosting, Malgieri reaches for bittersweet chocolate. Containing less sugar, and with a more intense flavor than semisweet or milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate yields a more concentrated taste for fewer calories. Go ahead, give his Easy Chocolate Mousse a try. Wright also prefers dark chocolate, which "actually doesn't have that much sugar," she says, adding that she also feels it has less "binge potential" than milk chocolate. (Bonus: Dark chocolate is a great source of healthy antioxidants.) And when it comes to making low-sugar baked goods—cookies, cakes, and brownies—do as Malgieri does and use unsweetened cocoa powder.

Use Less Sugar in Recipes

Sugar contributes not just to flavor but to texture, structure, and moisture in many desserts, making some dishes more adaptable than others. Malgieri recommends some caution when, as he puts it, "monkeying around" with the amount of sugar in recipes. Some good candidates for skimping on sugar: recipes for crisps, crumbles, or pie fillings, or a frozen treat like granita, for which the sugar is a "pure, out-and-out sweetener." There's also wiggle room with custard recipes, says Malgieri—you may be able to cut as much as 25 percent of the sugar. Malgieri's own Lemon Custard with Raspberry Sauce is very lightly sweetened, calling for a mere 2/3 cup of sugar for eight servings.

By contrast, ice cream and cake recipes are not as easy to modify—sugar keeps ice cream from freezing solid and helps cakes achieve the proper moisture—but Malgieri and Wright agree that it is possible to reduce the amount of sweeteners in many traditional recipes and still get great results. In Perfect Light Desserts, Malgieri and coauthor David Joachim point out that many recipes written before the 1970s contain an unnecessarily high amount of sugar, and suggest reducing the amount of sugar called for by about 1/2 cup.

As a general rule of thumb, Malgieri recommends taking out approximately 2 tablespoons for every 1 cup of sugar, and "see if anything awful happens." Keep in mind, too, that eliminating sugar entirely is not necessarily a good goal from a taste standpoint, according to Malgieri: "Sugar acts like salt does with vegetables—it makes it taste more like what it is." But remember, you need only a little bit.

Practice Moderation

"The biggest issue" when it comes to added sugar is "portion control," declares Wright. "Even the American Diabetes Association doesn't tell you you can't eat brownies." Both Malgieri and Wright say it's fine to have a small amount of a full-sugar treat, like a chocolate truffle, but resist the temptation to have more than one.

And don't mistake moderation for deprivation, they counsel; depriving yourself or getting overly hungry can lead to binge eating. "No treats," Malgieri warns, is "the superhighway to the bacon double cheeseburger," or a whole batch of cookies. "The message of moderation is boring, but it's true," Wright affirms. "If you allow yourself a small amount of something sweet here and there, then you can get it out of your system and enjoy it for all it's worth."