You’re a smart cookie. You know sugar isn’t good for you. You know you could probably stand to skip dessert, but you’d rather indulge that sweet tooth.
For the times when you just want something sweet, doggone it –
Make a smarter cookie.
The goal of Smart Sweets: 30 Desserts to Indulge Your Sweet Tooth is to give you options that are way better for you than you’ll find in the grocery store, usually better for you than another homemade version, and sometimes downright good for you.
You’ll find less sugar, healthier sweeteners, whole grains, soaked and sprouted grains, no grains, probiotics and even some vegetables in these desserts recipes.
If you always feel guilty when you give into sweet things, this book is definitely for you.
If you want a great way to slide that resistant someone into eating real food, this book is for you, too.
And if you’re just looking for a delicious soaked grain brownie, a birthday cake including whole grains, or homemade chocolate syrup without any high fructose corn syrup, then welcome, my friend: you’re surely in the right spot.
Smart Sweets
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What Recipes are in Smart Sweets?
I won’t make you wait any longer. The great disadvantage of an eBook is that you cannot flip through its pages in the bookstore and ogle at the delectable photographs. I can let you peek at the table of contents, however:
What’s the Premium Package?
When you purchase Smart Sweets here at Kitchen Stewardship, you automatically get the entire Premium Package:
PDF Downloadable eBook, Smart Sweets (89 pages)
Kindle & Nook Files
THREE Info Printables:
1. How to Bake with Honey
2. How to Healthify Baking Recipes (different steps you can take with your own favorite recipes, excerpted from Better Than a Box)
3. What’s That Sweetener? (a 3-page chart of all natural and unnatural sweeteners, how they’re made, how to use them, and more).
My Favorites
In Healthy Snacks to Go I like to say that the centerpiece is the power bars, Larabar knockoffs with 14 different flavor variations. For Smart Sweets, I fiddled a ton with a number of recipes, so for pure variations and perfectionism, let’s choose 3 anchor recipes for the book: the brownies (soaked, sprouted, fudgy, cakey, and even black bean brownies), the coconut macaroons (almond, chocolate, both, neither, and 6 different ways to bake whatever size batch you need), and the apple crisp (in the slow cooker, gluten free, streusel-ish or crisp-ish, etc.).
I’m sharing the full recipe of the Apple Crisp, just as it is in the book. If you’re familiar with any of the KS eBooks, you’ll recognize the familiar format of Healthy Snacks to Go and The Everything Beans Book.
You want photos?
Don’t even bother going any further if you’re trying to give up desserts: 
If the reduced price isn’t tempting enough, the free excerpt might be. Scroll up to the form and subscribe to the KS monthly newsletter to download 21 “sweet” pages to nibble on.
Reviews
Katie, your e-books are always so top-notch and well-thought out. This is much more than a recipe book… it’s practically a course in baking. I love that you offer “sweet” substitutes for the typical sugar sweetener, with an explanation of each substitute. I love that you pay special attention to provide ways to save time, and even ingredients. I love that you have some easy recipes that I can do on a whim to handle the sweet tooth in me, or the more complicated recipes (involving sprouting!) that I can take on as a challenge and learn from. Your alternatives and tips throughout the book will make the novice baker feel like a pro. Just like your camping e-book, this is a book I can give my friends for Christmas; I’m thinking of several who will love this e-book. Thank you – it was worth the wait! 🙂
–Renee Harris of MadeOn Hard Lotion
Katie, your e-books are always so top-notch and well-thought out. This is much more than a recipe book… it’s practically a course in baking. I love that you offer “sweet” substitutes for the typical sugar sweetener, with an explanation of each substitute. I love that you pay special attention to provide ways to save time, and even ingredients. I love that you have some easy recipes that I can do on a whim to handle the sweet tooth in me, or the more complicated recipes (involving sprouting!) that I can take on as a challenge and learn from. Your alternatives and tips throughout the book will make the novice baker feel like a pro. Just like your I’m a teacher by vocation and collegiate training, and I can’t help it: I teach in this book. You can expect incredibly clear, complete directions on every recipe. My FAQs get right into your head, and once you’re finished reading them, you won’t have any yourself. My goal is that even a nervous newlywed with no kitchen experience could follow these recipes successfully and deliciously.
I tried the brownies yesterday with my preschooler and they were a HIT! I don’t think I’m ever going to make brownies with refined flour ever again. –Prerna of The Mom Writes6 Reasons to Buy this Book
- Recipes tested by real people (I even yanked one during the last week before publishing because it wasn’t working well with reviewers)
- Pure Yumminess
- Lots of cooking and baking information
- Simple recipes that anyone can follow
- There’s a free recipe for homemade lotion in there plus a coupon for $3 off a family size Au Chocolat hard lotion bar from MadeOn. (Heavenly!)
- Healthy stuff…but also made for baby steppers.
An excerpt from the introduction:
Some readers may be appalled to see the option of white sugar in many of these recipes. “Why, Katie?” they may cry. “Why in Heaven’s name would you include something that is clearly a poison rather than teaching people about real food?”
I have a few reasons, actually.
First, I use white sugar from time to time. When there’s not much in a recipe, there are days when I just don’t feel like coughing up the double and triple price upgrade for maple syrup, sucanat or other unrefined sweeteners.
Second, I don’t want to be overly elitist or inaccessible to an average Joe or Jane Healthy Baking Rookie. If someone has no idea what sucanat is or where to find it in the stores, and they see a recipe that calls for only sucanat as a sweetener, they’ll likely skip the recipe and move on to something else. (That was me two years ago.)
I’d rather provide recipes that someone can make with what they have on hand and help reduce sugar/white flour intake than scare them away entirely. Besides that, if your average white sugar baker starts to get into Smart Sweets, perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to teach something about unrefined sugars, soaking grains, and traditional diets. (Waving at Joe and Jane Rookie Baker reading this part about themselves – glad you’re here!)
Third, I like to have “food donation” options. Even the most die hard real foodie who feels guilty if they have a bag of white sugar in the house might want a less expensive option when asked to bring a plate of cookies for a bake sale, for example. Many of us don’t have pockets deep enough to feed the best ingredients to the whole world, all the time. Reality is reality, and I like providing options for many different sweeteners, many different variations on each recipe. You’ll find one that works for the philosophy by which you already work in the kitchen.
from Smart Sweets
FAQs
Q: How many recipes are gluten-free?
A: Seventeen, 15 of which are also grain-free.
Q: How many are dairy-free?
A: Sixteen.
Q: How about egg free?
A: Many would probably work with egg substitutes, but 15 have been tested egg free.
Q: What about nuts?
A: There are just a few recipes that require nuts, but for most, nuts are optional.
Q: I don’t know what sucanat is. Will I be able to make recipes in the book?
A:That’s okay. First, I’ll teach you. Second, sucanat isn’t a secret code word to get into the world of real food desserts. We’ll work through this. Third, you should probably go buy some sucanat after you buy Smart Sweets.
Q: What are you going to do now that you’ve finished the book?
A: After all the recipe testing for this book, which has been marvelous, let me tell you – I’m thinking I should probably give up all sugars for a month or so…but I probably won’t. I’ll just shoot for smarter sweets. Thanks goodness I’m nursing a baby… But actually, I’ll be releasing the second edition of my first eBook, Healthy Snacks to Go, in just a few weeks! If you currently own it, you’ll automatically receive the update along with a screaming coupon for Smart Sweets.
Buy Here!
Smart Sweets
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Satisfaction Guaranteed
If you are unhappy with Smart Sweets for any reason, including allergies that prevent you from making too many recipes, I will provide a full refund, no questions asked.
Browse the table of contents before you buy in the 21 page freebie that’s free to nibble on when you subscribe to the KS monthly newsletter. Scroll up to download your copy today.
My Other Books
You can see all KS eBooks HERE, including:
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The Everything Beans Book (which includes the Black Bean Brownies from Smart Sweets!)
If you’re a blogger and interested in the affiliate program, click here.
Proud to boast the cover design of Sarah Dyess.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of MadeOn lotion – we totally work together on many projects and have had fun figuring out all the ways to co-brand a desserts book and lotion made of food. 🙂 Mostly that ends up with free stuff and discounts for you, so I can’t imagine anyone will mind, right?
Katie Kimball is a trusted educator and author of 8 real food cookbooks. She is passionate about researching natural remedies and making healthy cooking easier for busy families. She’s been featured on media outlets like ABC, NBC and First for Women magazine as well as contributing regularly on the FOX Network. Over the last 10 years, Katie has spoken prolifically at conferences, online summits and podcasts and become a trusted authority and advocate for children’s health. Busy moms look to this certified educator for honest, in-depth natural product reviews and thorough research. She often partners with health experts and medical practitioners to deliver the most current information to the Kitchen Stewardship community. In 2016 she created the #1 bestselling online kids cooking course, Kids Cook Real Food, helping thousands of families around the world learn to cook. A mom of 4 kids from Michigan, she is a Stress Mastery Educator and member of the American Institute of Stress.
Samara says
My daughter is almond, egg, gluten free. Is this book for me?
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Samara,
Hmmm, 17 recipes are gluten-free and 15 are egg free (plus some others that should work w/the flax substitute), but some of those that are GF might need some eggs… Almonds aren’t a big player in this book at all.
The bottom line is that if you can’t use enough recipes because of food allergies, I’m more than happy to refund your purchase price. If you’re looking through the Family Life sale, I think this one is a good deal even with all those allergies. Hope that helps! 🙂 Katie
Jennifer Kettlewell says
This looks like exactly the type of thing I am searching for!
shannon says
Thanks Katie; got the sweet coupon code after updating my Healthy Snacks to Go e-book and yours are the only e-books I’ve ever bought, I knew I had to have this one too! It looks wonderful though I don’t know when I’ll have time to try all the recipes and the new updates both from Healthy Snacks. It sure will make my family happy too! I just made the granola bars and they are awesome!
Alli via Facebook says
Worked this time. Thanks!
via Facebook says
Ack! Sorry, Alli Strohm Hyer – I typoed – It’s “VDAYYUM’ – blasted “a” key on my laptop is dying and I didn’t catch it. Phooey on me.
Alli via Facebook says
The code didn’t work for me 🙁
Faith says
Just made the soaked fudgy brownies last night and am looking forward to trying them tonight when I bring them as dessert to our non-real foodie friends house for our monthly dinner party!
One note, the directions for the soaked version say to add all other ingredients after you have soaked the soaking ingredients for 7-12 hours. I did this, then came to the end of the recipe where it says to sprinkle the batter with 1/2 c. chocolate chips! I had already put the chocolate chips into the batter. Are the sprinkled chocolate chips in addition to what is in the batter, or was I not supposed to mix them into the batter in the first place?
Also, my hubby bought the e-book for me for Christmas. He printed all the pages out, double sided, and put in a cute 3-ring binder so I am able to use it like a “real” cookbook! I think he was one of the ones who emailed you disappointed after he purchased it because he did not realize that it was not a real book 🙂
Katie says
Faith,
Whoops – the chocolate chips are slated for the top, but double chocolate never hurt a brownie that I’m aware of. Sounds like I neglected the words “except chocolate chips” to “add all other ingredients.” Sorry about that – my recipe testers didn’t catch it either!
Sooo glad to hear you’re enjoying the book, and how sweet of your husband! 🙂 Katie
Tina J says
The whole wheat chocolate chip cookies are the recipe that I am DYING to try! Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies and why not explore a new and heathier way to prepare them for my loved ones??? Makes me giddy just to think that I can enjoy sweets that are in fact good for me?!?! If that doesn’t make you smile, then you have no pulse!
Frances Piatt says
The magic coconut pie sounds interesting, would love to try that one and many more I won’t list.
plume says
If i’ll win the book, the first thing i am going to try the coconut macaroons.
Tenley says
Wonderful book, would love to try out healthier recipes.
nicole says
great book…cant wait to start baking! i want to make cookies!
Arlyne Bischof says
I really wish you would make your cookbooks into printed book form. I really do NOT find ebooks handy as I like to have a cookbook open to use on the counter while cooking. I find it very unhandy to have to go and pull it up and then print out the recipes in order to use them. I know a lot of other cooks who agree with me. I hope you will consider making them available in book form. I realize they might cost more but there are a lot of out here that are willing to pay for the convenience. Thanks, Arlyne
Katie says
Arlyne,
Definitely point noted! For a long time, no one requested this, but all of a sudden I have one or two a week hoping for printed copies. It’s going on “the list,” which is unfortunately really long, so don’t hold your breath…but thank you for the recommendation! 🙂 Katie
Laura says
Yesterday I tried the Magic Coconut Pie and it was so yummy. I had to use what I had on hand, sweetened coconut. I still used the 1/4 c sugar. We had fresh cranberries on hand, so I added about 3/4c to the blender at the end for a few pulses. The pieces floated to the top and made a pretty and tasty pie. Everyone enjoyed it. Thanks Katie for such a sweet book! Lots of great ideas along with the recipes.
Katie says
Laura,
I’m always looking for ways to use fresh cranberries, b/c when they’re on sale, I can’t stop buying them this time of year! 😉 That’s an excellent addition! 🙂 Katie
Martha says
BTW, he thought of the cashews since I have some out soaking preperatory to trying one of you reverse engineered Larabars for my hubby. I’m excited that HE asked ME if I had an option to the protein bars he’s been eating while biking. 🙂
Katie says
Martha,
So glad it’s a hit so far! You must let me know how the cashews go; I bet it will work deliciously. 😉 I have a friend who absolutely relies on the power bars for 20-mile and more bike trips, too. 🙂 Katie
Martha says
Bought this an hour or two ago and just made the peanut butter kisses. The three kids that are home are asking me to make them on a daily basis. One of our boys suggested subbing cashews for the coconut some time and I think he’s on to something.
Dani says
Katie, Thank you for doing this book. I have your snack book and we use it all the time. This is one area that I can use some tried and true recipes. We are making the honey molasses cookies today!
Katie says
Dani,
Thank YOU! What fun – did you put any add-ins into them? 🙂 Katie
Dani says
No add-ins yet, but these are SO good. I don’t feel bad about making these for Christmas!
Tara says
Whoa! Did you already sell 100 copies? It told me the code expired.
Katie says
Tara,
Yes, the half off is gone, but 35% is still available! 😉 Katie
via Facebook says
Aw, thanks, gals!
Sarah via Facebook says
I’ve been waiting for this Katie, I just bought it!
Celeste via Facebook says
Thanks! I just bought mine! I bought it cause I love sweets and want to limit sugar and also cause I love your blog and want to support you!
SnoWhite @ Finding Joy in My Kitchen says
exciting!!! can’t wait to see and browse all the yummy recipes.
Heather via Facebook says
Thank you! Still one of the first 100. A free “My Buttered Life” is wonderful as well – I’ve been wanting to look into that more. I’m SUPER excited about trying the Magic Coconut Pie. I’ve been waiting for that since you first mentioned it on your blog.
Rita via Facebook says
Got mine!!
Soccy via Facebook says
On my wishlist. Can’t wait!
Sarah via Facebook says
How exciting for you!!!!
Jessica via Facebook says
Woot! Got it! 😀
And, how awesome to include the “My Buttered Life” – I’ve been interested in checking that out for awhile now. 🙂
via Facebook says
That is fantastic!! Congrats on writing another ebook. I am sure it will be just as awesome as your other ones. Can’t wait to check it out.