Treat Yourself: Real Food Desserts – Book Review and Giveaway {CLOSED}

Since my husband is a baker on the side, I see a lot of sweet treats going out of our home. This ends up making me want some for myself sometimes. 🙂 I always feel guilty about making them, though, because I know they are not good for me or my family. When I found out about Modern Alternative Mama’s Treat Yourself: Real Food Desserts Cookbook, I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to start trying out the recipes in it.

What’s special about Treat Yourself is there is no white sugar or white flour in any of the recipes. As it reads in the intro, “It’s time to enjoy dessert again, without feeling like you are somehow ‘breaking the rules’ or destroying your family’s health. Real food dessert is an amazing and fun part of life…without the guilt!” What you will find in the way of sweeteners in this cookbook are: sucanat, raw local honey and real maple syrup.

As I mentioned, my husband is the baker in our family. I don’t really enjoy, nor am I very good at, baking. For that reason, I was a little apprehensive about how easy it would be for me to actually make these desserts. I have used honey a lot in baking but never have used the other two sweeteners so I was also wondering how good things would actually taste using these ingredients in place of their conventional counterparts. My fears were put to rest quite quickly. Not only are all the recipes I have made in the book super easy for even me, but they are all very yummy as well!

The brownies were the first thing I made and I pretty much ate most of the pan by myself that first time (oops!). Yep, they were that good. I made them again for a playdate and there were only crumbs left so they passed the kid test, too.

Next I decided to try the strawberry ice cream since I had a get together with some relatives and we were asked to bring ice cream for an ice cream sundae bar. The recipe actually ended up being enough for 2 batches so I was able to make it twice. This ice cream was SO delicious and creamy and sweet straight from the ice cream maker. The family enjoyed it, too as I had several compliments on it.

I wanted to try the chocolate chip cookies but did not have sprouted flour which the recipe called for so I used whole wheat flour instead. I LOVED these. I had a little trouble getting them formed together (it said to drop them but I ended up needing to make them into balls), but I actually ended up really liking how they turned out. They didn’t look like the typical chocolate chip cookie because they were roundish instead of flat and they were darker because of the flour I used but SO delicious. I really like the flavor the sucanat imparts to them, too. I think it gives them a richer flavor.

I also made the carrot cake and the cream cheese icing. I actually was really surprised by how incredibly simply it was to make the frosting and I really enjoyed the taste of it. My husband even said it was really good and he’s pretty picky about frosting. The carrot cake was a little heavy on cardamom for me personally but I definitely plan on making it again with less of that and I would like to add some raisins.

There are several other recipes I’m dying to try like the chocolate-mint filling, cinnamon rolls, scones, chocolate eclairs and strawberry short cake to name a few. If you are on the GAPS diet or are a grain-free family, there are LOTS of options for you in this book, too!

What I’m so happy about is I get to share one copy with you all! Yep, 1 of you is going to win your own Treat Yourself: Real Food Desserts cookbook. It is an ebook so you’ll have it right away so you can start making your own real food desserts quickly and I know you are going to enjoy it as much as I have. However, if you don’t want to wait (or you don’t end up winning), you can buy your own copy. I have a coupon code just for my readers: LITTLETREAT. This code will give you 25% off the price of the book (which is normally $7.95). Order soon though because the code will expire on October 17. 2011. You have until October 14, 2011 at 11:59pm EST to enter. I’ll contact the winner via email on October 15 and winner will be selected via random.org.

Here’s how to win your own copy of Treat Yourself: Real Food Desserts:

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