Oh, the things you can do with a microwave. After an initial love affair, American cooks felt betrayed by this appliance. Yes, it could cook. But there were problems. Outer edges got overcooked while middles went raw. Defrosting meat actually cooked it. And microwaves don’t brown. The microwave became delegated to warming frozen and prepared foods, reheating coffee and making uber-salty popcorn.
The microwave is certainly no panacea. There really are problems with some types of cooking and some types of food. But if you understand how it works, you can make better choices about what you do with it. And then you can begin to pull wonderful things from it’s shiny interior.
We’ve talked about some of things you can cook in the microwave, and I’m sure the subject will come up again. But what I want to discuss now is making desserts in the microwave.
One thing the microwave does well is heat liquids and easily melted items, like chocolate. Combine that chocolatey goodness with nuts and fruit and you’ve got a quick, easy and very tasty dessert. If you have chocolate chips or cocoa powder and sucralose, you’ve got the starting ingredients.
If you don’t have chocolate chips, or you want to cut back on the sugar, use my famous sugar-free, low fat chocolate sauce that can be warmed in the microwave. Just take equal parts cocoa powder and sucralose artificial sweetener and mix with a little water. I start with a tablespoon of each and work the mixture into a paste. It will take quite a bit of stirring to get there. Then stir in small tickles of water at a time until you get the consistency you want.
To melt chocolate chips, place 1/4 cup per serving in a microwave safe bowl and heat on medium for one minute. Stir then continue microwaving in 20 second intervals, stirring after each heating, until you get the consistency you want.
Chocolate Bananas. Can you think of a better way to enjoy bananas? Simply cut a banana into slices into a bowl and drizzle melted chocolate chips (or my chocolate syrup) over the slices. How simple is that? And if you think simple can’t be that good, you’re wrong.
Chocolate Fondue. This is even easier. Get a nice warm chocolate sauce like before and then just dip pieces of fruit (dried or fresh), bread or marshmallows in the chocolate.
Warm Cherries with Ricotta and Sliced Almonds. Warm cherries in a bowl in the microwave and top with creamy ricotta cheese and sliced almonds or other chopped nuts.
Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes. Melt a quarter cup chocolate chips as described above and combine with 1/2 cup ricotta cheese. Lay out 12 chocolate wafer cookies and spoon a tablespoon of the chocolate-cheese mixture onto each. Then top each one with a 1/4 teaspoon of fruit jam in the flavor of your choice. Voila!
Get the best out of your microwave without skipping dessert or adding a lot of fat and sugar.
