Healthy Holiday Desserts

Indulge in this lightened take on traditional pecan pie. The crust is thin and flakey leaving more room for the sweeneted pecans and rich chocolate drizzle.

For friends or family, a gift of Red Velvet Cupcakes is always a welcomed treat. Don't pass on the signature red food coloring  to attain that unmistakable red cake color of this classic dessert.

Using oats in the filling allows you to keep crunchy nuttiness but use fewer pecans than you would use in a traditional pie. The pecans do add heart-health monounsaturated fat, and the oats help increase the fiber.

If you like pumpkin pie, you'll love this cake's subtle spice flavors and velvety cream cheese frosting.

A riff on the classic pecan pie, this dessert is rich, chocolaty, and a little fancier with its freestanding fluted sides. Of course, you can use a 9-inch pie plate if you don't have a tart pan with a removable bottom.

Make an old-fashioned apple pie special for the holidays by topping it with a streusel topping and drizzling with a fat- free caramel sauce.

Make pound cake both seasonal and healthier by adding mashed pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice to the batter and topping with a buttermilk glaze.

Impress your guests with a stunning cranberry cheesecake. The secret of the rich but reduced-fat filling is the combination of reduced-fat and fat-free cream cheese and Greek yogurt.

This classic holiday cake is lower in fat than a traditional coconut cake because the frosting is made with egg whites instead of cream cheese and butter. And although real butter is used in the cake batter, it's only 1/3 cup because light coconut milk is added to help make the dessert rich and moist.

Impress your holiday guests with rolled chocolate cake filled with a fluffy chocolate-cream cheese filling. This recipe features the convenience of an angel food cake mix, and because the filling calls for 1/3-less-fat cream cheese and fat-free whipped topping, you won't have to feel guilty about having a slice.

This classic holiday dessert is traditionally made with sponge cake or ladyfingers brushed with sherry and layered with jam, custard, and whipped cream. Our lightened version uses pound cake and a lower-fat pastry cream made with reduced-fat milk, eggs, sugar, and cornstarch. For the fruit mixture, fresh cranberries are cooked with a small amount of sugar and orange juice. It's a great dessert for the holidays because you can make it a day ahead.

Gingerbread is always welcome during the holidays, and here it's spruced up with light coconut milk and fresh ginger. The tropical theme is also maintained in the creamy frosting with range marmalade and toasted coconut. Don't worry about splurging because each slice of this two-layer cake has only 253 calories.

Nothing is more elegant and impressive to serve during the holidays than a créme brûlée, especially one that boasts favorite holiday flavors like cinnamon and orange. Because the custard is made with reduced-fat milk, nonfat dry milk, and fewer eggs, it has about two-thirds less fat than a traditional brûlée.

Using fat-free cream cheese and fat-free sour cream in the batter and decreasing the amount of butter in the crust helps keep the fat content down in this holiday cheesecake. The rich flavor comes from fresh vanilla bean seeds and red wine-simmered cherries.

With less than 250 calories per slice and antioxidant-rich pumpkin, this pie is a must for your holiday menu. Even with a refrigerated pie crust and real whipping cream, the fat content is still only 7.4 grams per serving.

This is a fun way to use all the candy canes that come your way this time of year. If you really like mint, substitute mint chocolate chip ice cream.