Sex in a Pan...Or Its G-Rated Name
Call It What You Will...This Dessert Is Perfect for Valentine's
Hello Friend. It’s been a month and a crazy one at that. Starting with a lovely few days in the panhandle of Florida. Perfect weather, the best New Year’s Eve on the pier and time with family! It was a great start to a brand new year. After last year, things are looking up.
The day we arrived back, I hit the ground running preparing for a whole new career plus an event with our cute little tap truck. Training for my new publishing career started the very next day and was way more intense than I could have imagined. After a month of working in this business, however, I love it.
It truly feels like all my experience since college makes sense and I’m finally on a career path that I can truly sink into and build a legacy business for my kids along with the things Kyle is working on for the year.
Thanks!
Thanks for giving me a month to figure things out. What I’ve come to after reviewing your overwhelming response is for all subscribers, I will continue to post the first Monday of each month (rather than the 1st) and stick to my story+recipe format I did most of last year.
DIY Cookbook
For those of you who are paid subscribers, we are working on uploading all 52 weekly meal plans and will have at least through #13 by the end of February with our goal to have all 52 ready by the end of March. Each PDF is complete with seasonal, real food recipes, shopping list and meal prep guide (if you want to get ahead each week.) Plus you will get PDFs to print for any recipe I publish and access to our private chat community. It’s basically like having your own ready-to-print cookbook.
Monthly Recipe
Last year I posted tons of dinners and most of my recipes within posts were also dinner recipes. This year, instead, each month’s recipe is going to be something fun and different but still real food and gluten free starting with the fun, Valentine’s themed recipe below.
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February Recipe
This month’s recipe is a nostalgic nod to my early teenage years. As a new teenager just learning the ways of the world, saying the name of this dessert—Sex in a Pan, as my mom and her friends called it—was enough to send me and my friends into fits of giggles. It was the perfect mix of sweetness and scandal, the kind of thing that made my Southern Baptist teenage self feel like I was getting away with something. The name itself was almost as fun as the dessert was delicious!
Or at least in my food memory it was delicious…The version I grew up on was far from any sort of real food, full of sugar and almost entirely created from processed foods. A few years ago, I decided to recreate it using real food and further to make it gluten and dairy free. It came out amazing and I didn’t feel like crap after eating it.
So, now I give to you…
Sex in a Pan (AKA Chocolate Layered Dessert)
This is almost completely made with better-for-you sweeteners. To make it 100% natural sweeteners, leave out the powdered sugar in the whipped coconut cream or make your own by blending up date sugar.
Shortbread crust
1 cup King Arthur Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour
½ cup butter, melted
1 tbsp coconut sugar
2/3 cup pecans, finely chopped
Cream cheese layer
8 oz Kite Hill Plain Cream Cheese
1 tbsp gelatin
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp vanilla
6 oz coconut cream*
Chocolate pudding
13.5 ounces full-fat canned coconut milk divided
2 teaspoons gelatin
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ cup maple syrup
⅛ teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Coconut Whipped Cream
6 oz coconut cream*
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar, optional
Cocoa powder and chopped pecans for garnish
Equipment: Blender, 7 x 11” pan, sifter or fine mesh strainer (not necessary but helpful)
1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Stir all Shortbread Crust ingredients together and press in the bottom of the pan and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool.
3. Make Cream Cheese Layer while crust is baking. Blend all the ingredients together. Spread onto crust once it’s cooled.
4. Make the chocolate pudding.
5. Shake up the coconut milk well and poul ¼ cup into a measuring cup or small bowl.
6. Whisk in gelatin and set aside.
7. Combine remaining coconut milk, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk well and continue to stir occasionally until small bubble form around the edges. Add the gelatin mixture and whisk in well.
8. Let cool and pour over the cream cheese layer.
9. Allow the pudding layer to set then top with coconut whipped cream.
10. Beat the coconut cream with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and powdered sugar if using. Spread over pudding layer.
11. Garnish with cocoa powder (use sifter or fine mesh strainer) and chopped pecans.
*Note: For coconut cream, you can either buy two cans of coconut cream or you can buy one can of full fat coconut milk and place inthe fridge overnight to solidify. Open from the bottom and pour off any clear liquid. Thai Kitchen is the best brand with the most cream.
Download Recipe PDF
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