Birthday Party Food for Kids: Healthier Cake Alternatives
Your child's birthdayparty is probably one of the highlights of their year, but you don't have to stop your healthy eating habits for their special day.
1. Fruit Fondue
Fruit Fondue is still pretty high in sugar because of the chocolate, but it does pack some healthbenefits because of the fresh fruit! Buy the highest quality chocolate you can afford, preferably dark chocolate because of its antioxidant properties. For the fruit dippers you can use fruits like strawberries, banana chunks, pineapple chunks, and appleslices.
2. Low Sugar Carrot Cake
Low Sugar Carrot Cake uses natural sweeteners, usually crushed pineapple and pineapple juice, in place of most of the refined sugar in the recipe. You should also easily be able to find recipes for low sugar icing, which usually include a base cream cheese along with crushed pineapple and coconut.
3. Low Fat Vanilla Pudding
Pudding is a great cake alternative, and there are many low-fat and fat-free varieties available at your local grocery store. Vanilla is the best type of pudding to use because it has lower sugar content than chocolate, but Banana is also a great option. With either pudding variety you can add chunks of fresh fruit to make it healthier.
4. Dried Fruit "Truffles"
Dried Fruit "Truffles" are a great healthycake alternative, and they are also incredibly easy to make! Just take 3 cups of dried fruit like prunes, dates, apricots, mangoes, apples, and raisins and combine with one cup of pecans or walnuts. Add 3 tablespoons of apple juice and blend all ingredients in a blender. Then roll the mixture into balls and coat with dark chocolateshavings or coconut shavings.
5. Angel Food Cake & Fresh Berries
Angel Food Cake has long been known to be low-fat, but for some reason it's forgotten when it comes to kid's birthday parties. Angel Food Cake actually makes a great cake for a kid's birthday party, especially when jazzed up with a medley of fresh berries. Berries to use include strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Since the center of an Angel Food Cake is hollow, it also lends itself perfectly to being jazzed up with decorations in the center!
6.Vanilla Cake Minus the Icing
If your kids just love the traditional birthday cake, and you still want them to be able to enjoy a special treat on their day, serve a vanilla cake but leave off the icing. The icing on the cake contains much of the sugar, so leaving it off will make the cakemuch healthier. You could also serve a chocolatecake without icing, although chocolate cakes tend to have more sugar in general. Instead of the icing, you can jazz up the top of the cake with fun decorations, candles, and even fresh fruit.
7. Fruit Popsicles
Summer birthdayparties lend themselves perfectly to popsicles, but they don't have to be the normal sugar and water variety! You can make your own popsicles using 100% fresh juice, a Popsicle mold, and Popsicle sticks. The variety of popsicles you can make is only limited by the different varieties of 100% juice available in your local Grocery store.
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