There was a point, about three years into this, when someone tried one of my desserts at a dinner table and said: this tastes nothing like a healthy dessert.
They meant it as a compliment. I took it as a signal.
Because if the goal is for something to taste like a healthy dessert, that specific version of a thing where you can detect the compromise, where the texture is almost right and the flavour is mostly there, then the bar is already too low.
The goal was never to make a better version of a bad imitation. The goal was to make desserts that compete with the original on every single measure that matters: taste, texture, satisfaction, the way you feel when you eat them and the way you feel an hour later.
Those are not the same goal. The first one gives you a dessert people eat politely. The second gives you a dessert people ask for again.
I stopped calling them healthy desserts around that time. Not because the health aspect does not matter. It matters enormously and it is built into every ingredient choice, into the way each recipe is structured. But leading with healthy sets an expectation that the eating experience will require some adjustment.
It should not require any adjustment. The dessert should just be good.
That is the standard I build every recipe to. Not good for a healthy version. Good. Full stop.
If you have been settling for close enough, that is where I would invite you to raise the bar. The desserts you love are not off-limits. They just need to be rebuilt properly.
If you want to learn how to do that, the waitlist for my programme is open. The details are here.
