hypothyroid desserts that inspire?

January 25, 2014 5:28 PM

I'm in charge of making dessert for a dinner party. My friend is eating for her thyroid, which essentially means no refined sugar or gluten or cow dairy. I'd like dessert to be something she could eat, but also, um, delicious, and dessert-y (i know i could make applesauce, but that depresses me). It is winter in Quebec and berries are six bucks a container. What can I make that satisfies all of these dinner party requirements? Thank you!
posted by andreapandrea to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Panna cotta made with coconut milk and honey, if that's permissible, or splenda if not. Make a sauce by simmering frozen berries in wine and whatever sweetener you are using, filter out the berries (they will turn to fibrous masses) and reduce.
posted by bunderful at 5:32 PM on January 25, 2014

When you say she's "eating for her thyroid," do you mean she's on a low-iodine diet? I know when I've had to be on a low-iodine diet, it was OK for me to have dairy-free dark chocolate desserts. So since she's also gluten-free, maybe something like this flourless chocolate cake (with appropriate substitution for the granulated sugar)?
posted by scody at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: How about a banana "ice cream" (which is really just pureed frozen banana), plus gluten-free beignets sweetened with a bit of maple syrup instead of sugar? I've made both of those recipes and they're both really good. You could pipe some kind of berry purée or a touch more maple syrup into the beignets and forgo the dusting of icing sugar.
posted by urbanlenny at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2014 [6 favorites]

Maple-sweetened coconut pudding? I use this recipe all the time, substituting almond milk for regular milk. You can just sub in maple syrup for sugar - I found it best to do a 1:1 ratio for this recipe even though that's not conventional. A good way to do this is to make a cornstarch slurry with some of the almond milk and dissolve the cornstarch really well, then add that to the rest of the liquid.

You can make this chocolate - I used to use solid chocolate, but I had to make it for a friend who is avoiding soy and hence the soy lecithin in most solid chocolate and just used Hershey's cocoa powder, and it was really really good. I think I used about 7 T.

And of course, I have experimented with adding molasses (1-2 T in place of some of the sweetening) or spices and spice extracts.

It's a really reliable dish - I have served it at a lot of events and it always gets compliments, not least because almost everyone can eat it.
posted by Frowner at 5:48 PM on January 25, 2014

Frowner reminds me of Chocolate tofu pudding. Substitute another sweetener.
posted by bunderful at 5:53 PM on January 25, 2014

Baked apples with walnuts & raisins. Sprinkle them with cinnamon, nutmeg & honey.

Poached pears.
posted by belladonna at 6:02 PM on January 25, 2014 [7 favorites]

Tab Tim Grob is a Thai dessert based on water chestnuts, coconut, and tapioca starch, which you'd buy in an Asian market if you have access to one (though maybe more conventional grocery stores would also have it? I've never looked). I've made it with stevia before and Splenda/sucralose would probably work even better. Plus, it looks really cool and exotic.
posted by XMLicious at 6:18 PM on January 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: No worries, you have many options!

How about ice cream?

Toasted Coconut Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Coffee Ice Cream

Lemon Meringue Pie Ice Cream

Or how about a Cinnamon Vanilla Rice Pudding?

There are a lot of recipes for cookies, cakes and more.
posted by travelwithcats at 6:21 PM on January 25, 2014

Almond flour crepes - you can serve with fruits and drizzle with chocolate sauce made with melted unsweetened dark chocolate. You can also make the crepes more interesting by adding flavor extracts, like lemon/orange, mint, almond, etc, to the batter.
posted by joyeuxamelie at 6:36 PM on January 25, 2014

You might find this list of unrefined sweeteners handy.

Here's a list of gluten free desserts - you can substitute sugar and dairy with unrefined sweetener and almond/coconut/soy milk options.

Sorry for posting multiple times.
posted by joyeuxamelie at 6:39 PM on January 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Apple snow is applesauce taken to the next level - light, elegant and delicious.
posted by brushtailedphascogale at 6:48 PM on January 25, 2014

Best answer: Fried bananas or roasted fruits? Could be good in combination with nuts or the almond crepes joyeuxamelie posted.
posted by egg drop at 2:33 AM on January 26, 2014

If she's allowed dark chocolate Chocolate Chantilly
Its just dark chocolate + water but with the right chocolate (dark but not too high in cocoa content, else it gets bitter) it makes a super creamy and really chocolatey mousse. It goes great with any fruit that goes with chocolate but its also really nice on its own.
posted by missmagenta at 9:20 AM on January 26, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! I ended up combining several of these great ideas and making coconut-milk banana ice cream (sweetened with a tiny bit of maple syrup) and fried some bananas up in a tiny bit of scotch. A few toasted walnuts and voila! dessert was saved!

Thanks!
posted by andreapandrea at 1:39 PM on January 27, 2014