Desserts without chocolate
June 27, 2022 2:25 PM   Subscribe

Sadly, chocolate appears to be a (sometimes) migraine trigger for me, so I'm trying to avoid it. I'd love your suggestions of chocolate-free deserts - both packaged and recipes.

Looking for
- Packaged cookies and other shelf-stable items
- Ice cream (this one is particularly hard!)
- Recipes for cookies, cakes, and other things I could bake

I live in a major metropolitan area on the West Coast of the US. I hate cheesecake and can't eat cinnamon (another migraine trigger) but other than that I'm open to anything.

P.S. If someone can explain why sometimes chocolate gives me migraines and sometimes doesn't, I'd be most appreciative!
posted by radioamy to Food & Drink (35 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Blondies - there are many versions of this and this one like others are pretty tolerant of substitution so you can easily replace the chocolate chips with butterscotch or whatever fits your fancy.
posted by mmascolino at 2:33 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


I like to buy key lime juice from Amazon and make some simple key lime pie (google simple key lime pie - its always worth it to make your own graham cracker crust , or if you are willing to go wild, get an ice cream maker and make key lime sorbet. They are both exquisite, and easy. If I could not eat chocolate I would lean hard on home made sorbets and ice creams.
posted by jcworth at 2:34 PM on June 27, 2022


Chocolate is a frequent trigger for me, too. It's more likely to cause a migraine for me if I already have some other predisposing factors (sleep deprivation, etc.). The strongest correlation is the darkness of the chocolate, though. So I've become sort of aggressively anti-dark-chocolate-snobbery. Step it up and make good milk chocolate, chocolatiers, or suffer my wrath! (Guittard makes good milk chocolate chips, btw.)

Do you like nuts, creamy flavors, and fruit flavors? If so, there are lots of cookie options! Trader Joe's has a lot of non-chocolate-centered cookies, especially sandwich cookies and shortbread cookies. Good shortbread is so great with creamy tea or coffee!

Exploring Japanese, Chinese, or Korean bakeries near you will be fun too. They have chocolate stuff but also lots of non-chocolate stuff focusing on fresh fruits, matcha, coconut, kabocha, taro, and other flavors. And macarons! East Asian grocery stores will also have fun ice cream bars.

Jeni's ice cream is $$$ but worth it (and honestly, I eat smaller servings of it because it's rich). Check out the Gooey Butter Cake variety.

For make at-home desserts I'd look into shortbreads, vanilla or butterscotch pudding (and also custard/flan/creme caramel etc.), meringues, candied nuts, caramels, quick breads/loaf cakes...For cakes it's hard to know where to start, because there are so many cakes that don't contain chocolate! I have a really fun book called A World of Cake that has tons of colorful photos of cakes from different countries and traditions. It might be fun to pick up something like that and let the gorgeous images get you excited about eating non-chocolate cakes.

Good luck and have fun! (And: solidarity, it's aggravating when chocolate used to be such a trustworthy fallback treat.)
posted by wintersweet at 2:40 PM on June 27, 2022 [3 favorites]


Oh yes, pies! During 2020 I made a lot of pies, crisps, and crumbles. They're easy and adaptable. I've used a zillion different recipes and they've honestly all been fine, but here are Sohla’s Rules For Fruit Crumble .
posted by wintersweet at 2:42 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


Speaking of key lime pie, I make this Lime Cracker Pie from Kenji-Lopez Alt. It's easier because there's no crust involved, but it's so good.
posted by cozenedindigo at 2:42 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


Lemon Delicious: https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipes/lemon-delicious-23933

Fruit crumbles - while many call for cinnamon in the topping you could omit it. I usually use a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.
Our go to is apple & rhubarb but you can do pear, peach, etc. My crumble topping is flour, brown & white sugar, oats, butter, the spices.

Fruit Cobblers too. (There are really easy recipes sometimes like "dump a can of peaches in the dish, cover with vanilla cake mix, bake")
posted by freethefeet at 2:42 PM on June 27, 2022


Ginger or lemon are my go to flavour profiles for sweet things.

Lemon drizzle cake, lemon self saucing pudding and stem ginger cookies. I am not US based otherwise i would recommend specific products. Hazelnut gelato might be worth hunting down.

Is the causality related to magnesium? Apparently one cause of chocolate and sugar craving (and trigger for migraine) is magnesium deficiency. So, you might already be heading into a migraine, your body needs magnesium but prioritises the magnesium in chocolate but you still get the migraine anyway. Depending on your chocolate of preference the sugar and dairy in a milk chocolate might be more of a trigger than if you have a high percentage dark chocolate.
posted by pipstar at 2:47 PM on June 27, 2022


Just focusing on ice cream, there are so many flavors out there for you to try. Go a bit retro and try maple pecan, rum raisin, or my favorite pistachio. For toppings explore salted caramel, fruit compotes, dried coconut, and rainbow sprinkles! There’s the whole world of fruit sorbets, sherbets, and ices to explore too; my favorite is probably mango, but have you ever had guava sorbet? Amazing.

If you crave chocolate specifically, think about what parts of it you are craving. Is it the bitterness? The tannins? The mouthfeel? If you like the bitter kick chocolate brings to sweet desserts, try things like candied citrus peel or matcha-heavy pastries. If you want tannins, try things flavored with tea, cranberries, or blueberries. If it’s the way chocolate feels as it melts in the mouth, try coconut and cashew based sweets.
posted by Mizu at 3:16 PM on June 27, 2022


I happen to not like chocolate, and I never have.

Ben & Jerry's Salted Caramel Core ice cream is delish.

Fig Newtons!

My neighbor recently gave me some rhubarb, so I made rhubarb sauce (4 c rhubarb diced, 1/2 c water, 1/2 t salt, 3/4 c granulated sugar, 1 t vanilla extract. Put all but the vanilla in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil then turn to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes, until the rhubarb has broken down and become soft. Remove from stove and stir in vanilla). I then poured it over vanilla ice cream. It was like a strawberry sundae, but with rhubarb ... a rhubarb sundae. Sweet and sour. Yum, so good!

Google apple hand pies!
Google coffee cake!
Google peanut butter cookies!

Moon Balls
1 1/2 c granola
1/4 c wheat germ (optional)
2 c nonfat dry milk powder
1 c honey
1 c peanut butter (no sugar kind)
Place ingredients in a bowl of a KitchenAid mixer and stir on low until well-combined (or stir by hand). Roll mixture in small balls (approx 2-3 T per ball).
Place rolled balls on a cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

Sour Cream Cookies
Dump ingredients together in this order:
3 eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
1 c butter
1 c sour cream
1 t vanilla
1 t soda
3 t baking powder
3 1/2 c flour
Dollop onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees.
Let cool cool and frost with vanilla frosting.
This are like little hand-cakes. Delicious!!

I could go on and on about the wonderful, non-chocolatey things out there! Yumsville!!
posted by SageTrail at 3:35 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


It might help if you shared more about what flavours you like, or what other restrictions are making this tricky - chocolate is only one flavour and there are almost infinite other flavour options for all three. Or are you looking for other people's specific favorite things?

For me a few that come to mind first are shortbread cookies (buy a good brand with only the basic ingredients), candied nuts, maple fudge, butter pecan ice cream, strawberry ice cream, coffee ice cream (again quality is important, buy a good brand, I like haagen dazs), any pastries that appeal to you (preferably from a bakery), candy, creme brulee, red velvet cake, strawberry shortcake. There are so many more too, are there big things you want to avoid like fruit or caramel?
posted by randomnity at 3:37 PM on June 27, 2022


coffee cake edit:

https://fiercefork.com/finally-a-coffee-cake-without-cinnamon-and-sugar-with-a-cream-filling/
posted by SageTrail at 3:41 PM on June 27, 2022


These may not be the best cookies (peanut butter cookies are the best cookies you should make those too) but they disappear quite fast when I make them. The cookies aren't too sweet by themselves but if you're decorating them then I imagine they could get that way.

Grapefruit cut-out sugar cookies

Ingredients:
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature for 1 hour
2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
freshly grated zest of one grapefruit
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Beat butter, cream cheese and sugar together in a large bowl (Bowl 1) until light and fluffy. I used a hand mixer for this.
Add egg, vanilla extract and grapefruit zest.
In a separate bowl (Bowl 2) mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to Bowl 1.
Divide dough into 2 balls and roll each ball until between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick on a sheet of parchment paper. Refrigerate the rolled out dough for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Cut out cookies to desired shapes and bake for 8-12 minutes.
Let cookies cool before decorating or enjoy as-is.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:48 PM on June 27, 2022


Thiiiiiis (it's a strawberry mousse, on a shortbread crust. I make a half-batch, in a loaf tin. It's great with fresh strawberries, but frozen is just as good. And probably other fruits would work well.)
posted by BekahVee at 3:48 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


Strawberry Shortcake made with Bisquick biscuits

Trifle: layers of pound cake, berries, custard and whipped cream
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:59 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


I too have never been a chocolate fan. I've softened in my dotage, but until I was at least 30 I never had more chocolate than what came on a Snickers, and even that was less than agreeable. I used to freeze them and cut the chocolate off.
  • Jell-O
  • Lemon Meringue Pie is my favorite
  • Nilla Wafers
  • Lemon Coolers
  • Not sure how far they get out of Northern CA, but Mother's Circus Animals
  • Apple Turnovers are easy to make with Pepperidge Farm pastry dough
  • Favorite ice cream is Haagen Dazs Strawberry, but I also specialize in orange sherbet (not sorbet!), though any sherbet is good. If you ever go to Fenton's in Oakland they have pineapple sometimes.
  • If you want to get into making candy (not super hard), there's a whole world of options in the toffee/brittle family. Also nougats.
  • Angel Food cake (get a non-nonstick 2-piece tube pan with cooling legs for <$20. There's a 7" one, too)
Ted Lasso got me thinking of working on shortbread, which I understand is one of those deceptively simple cookies, like peanut butter, that can be difficult to make to the most of its potential. That is, a wide range of outcomes with a long history of perfectionism among practitioners.
posted by rhizome at 4:06 PM on June 27, 2022


Packaged treats: I'm guessing it will be tricky to avoid cinnamon too, but it looks like there's a few Pepperidge Farm varieties that might work (e.g. Tahoe white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, assuming white chocolate is ok, Verona apricot raspberry cookies). Shortbread. Rice Krispie treats. Gummy/sour candies.

Ice cream: fruit pops, mochi ice cream, fruit sorbets. Gelato/ice cream flavors I like: salted caramel, dulce de leche, coconut, hazelnut, butter pecan, mango, strawberry, lemon, coffee.

Home made: Fruit desserts - crumbles, crisps, cobblers etc. Most pies don't involve chocolate (fruit, pecan, lemon meringue etc). This strawberry spoon cake is really good (NYT cooking). Rice pudding, brown butter anything, yogurt cake, oatmeal raisin cookies (use nutmeg, ginger, and/or cardamom instead of cinnamon), gingerbread/cake (I love this Triple ginger skillet cake also from NYT Cooking, skip the cinnamon).
posted by loop at 4:21 PM on June 27, 2022


Almond bundt cake. Poppyseed Bundt cake (see below.) Things with maple or brown sugar or browned butter for complexity. And years ago I had rose-geranium flavored macarons from Miette that I still dream about.

1/2 c. poppyseeds
1 c. buttermilk or sour milk (I've often used 1 c. soy milk + 1 TBS vinegar or lemon juice)
1 c. butter or margarine, cut in chunks
1.5 c. sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract (or ALMOND)
2.5 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Soak poppyseeds in milk for at least 1/2 an hour. Using the food processor's steel knife, process butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla for 2 minutes. Remove cover and add poppyseed/milk mixture to batter. Process for 3-4 seconds to blend. Add dry ingredients and process with 5-6 on/off turns. Mix through with a rubber spatula if batter is not completely blended. Pour into a greased and floured 12-cup Bundt pan (Bakers Joy flour spray is awesome for this). Bake @ 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes (or less), until cake tests done. Cool 15 minutes before removing from pan.
posted by needs more cowbell at 4:35 PM on June 27, 2022


More cookies: snickerdoodle variations (eggnog snickernoodles with nutmeg, gingerdoodles). Peanut butter cookies. Brown butter cookies. Mexican wedding cookies. Alfajores. Rugelach. Linzer cookies.
posted by loop at 4:39 PM on June 27, 2022


Response by poster: These are all great ideas! I think what I like about chocolate is the bitter with the sweet, and the mouthfeel. What's been hard about ice cream specifically is that all the non-chocolate ones seem *very* sweet. I like caramel, but only as an accent - full-on caramel ice cream just feels like a mouthful of sugar to me.
posted by radioamy at 5:05 PM on June 27, 2022


For more of the bitter and sweet, lean toward fruit ices, sherbets, and sorbets. Think Lemon Italian Ice for example, or a nice orange sherbet.

Other cookies: Ginger Molasses

For inspiration overload, check out Sally's Baking Addiction. She does not have a way to rule out chocolate in dietary preferences, but she's got so many recipes that it's easy to gloss over the chocolate ones.

I believe that most people who need to avoid chocolate can successfully eat white chocolate, so that might be another avenue to look into.
posted by hydra77 at 5:13 PM on June 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


This might be controversial, but have you tried carob?

Stay with me here . . . I grew up with A TON of food allergies, and in the 80s, folks really lumped all the allergens together. I ate a lot of carob when I really just needed to avoid wheat, corn, dairy and peanuts. I have been known to rail against the terrible flavor combo of melty carob chips and raw sunflower seeds in "allergen-free" trailmix (ugggggggggghhhhhhh). BUT! I recently purchased two pounds of carob chips from nuts.com in order to "prove" to my husband how terrible it is. I made him an Easter basket full of coconut nests, chocolate bark , carob covered nuts and citrus peels, etc.

Reader, it was delicious.

I realize my young tastebuds were traumatized by unsweetened carob and the mild social stigma of being the kid with weird food. It could be worth trying to sub carob chips in any cookie or bar and this looks like it could be a plausible carob brownie recipie.
posted by annaramma at 5:14 PM on June 27, 2022


Angel food cake; fresh strawberries; whipped cream. Or substitute those dessert shells for the Angel food cake. Either way, slice the strawberries over the cake/shell, top with whipped cream.
Easy peasy, great for summer weather.
posted by annieb at 5:31 PM on June 27, 2022


I think what I like about chocolate is the bitter with the sweet, and the mouthfeel

I feel like coffee could replicate a lot of this, like make a tiramisu and just don't dust the top with cocoa.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:38 PM on June 27, 2022


Coffee ice cream and pistachio ice cream have that richness, complexity, smoothness. White chocolate chips would be good in coffee ice cream for texture. Obviously these are sweet, but not cake batter with icing swirls and sprinkles sweet.
posted by kapers at 7:07 PM on June 27, 2022 [2 favorites]


Also, you may be okay with a little bit of milk chocolate (like a reasonable amount of milk choco chips in blondies, but not a full brownie’s worth of dark chocolate.) I mention this because brownies are a guaranteed five-alarm migraine for me, but I seem to be able to handle smaller amounts that accent other things.
posted by kapers at 7:11 PM on June 27, 2022


If you ever find salted burned caramel ice cream, it's very different from the sickly sweet kind.
posted by foxfirefey at 7:26 PM on June 27, 2022


On mobile, but - pavlova? Buttermilk panna cotta? A frangipane-stone fruit tart? Almond cloud cookies from King Arthur, who will also have lots of non chocolate cakes? Bakewell tarts? Should all be readily available recipes online, but MeMail if you can’t find one you want to try.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 7:55 PM on June 27, 2022


Baklava
posted by rhizome at 8:09 PM on June 27, 2022


Packaged cookies: Rustic Bakery’s Meyer Lemon Shortbread cookies are one of my favorites even as a serious chocolate lover.

They also have some pretty fancy Artisan Crisps etc that are fun, and their products are relatively easy to find on the West Coast. I really like the Tart Cherry, Cacao Nib and Almond crisps which have a pretty small amount of cacao nib and I wonder if those might possibly work even if I don’t know why it sometimes isn’t a migraine trigger for you!
posted by KatlaDragon at 8:14 PM on June 27, 2022


This might be controversial, but have you tried carob?

Modern carob chips taste just like chocolate. Look for EnjoyLife brand - they are great.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:47 AM on June 28, 2022


I personally love tahini/sesame-based baked goods for a bit of that bitterness that you might miss from chocolate. Tahini cookies are a wonderful "upgrade" from peanut butter cookies, for example. Or black sesame cake.
posted by mosst at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2022


These crystalized ginger and lemon cookies are great

If you don't mind shopping for more out-of-the-way ingredients, Persian Love Cake sounds complicated but is actually really easy to make (we just use cardamom powder rather than cracking the pods)

Less complicated, but there are a million recipes out there for butter cookies, sugar cookies, and stained glass cookies - they're pretty hard to mess up and always good.
posted by Mchelly at 10:05 AM on June 28, 2022


Banana bread, strawberries and cream (really any fruit and cream), ginger snaps, lemon and lime pies and cakes, and fruit topped tartes all rule.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:18 AM on June 28, 2022


Packaged cookies: I love Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes cookies (there might be a bit of a shortage right now, but they're usually readily available).

Trader Joe's thin cookies (lemon, ginger, coconut) are quite good.

Easy snacks to make at home: graham crackers with cream cheese and your favorite jam.
posted by kristi at 10:09 AM on June 29, 2022


OH! I just noticed the mention of gingerbread - gingerbread with vanilla ice cream on top is fabulous.
posted by kristi at 10:10 AM on June 29, 2022


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