I'm dreaming of a...

...fructose-free white Christmas slice!

Oh yes, Christmas time is upon us and this is the time of year to apply the old 'party foods are for [Christmas] parties' advice from Sweet Poison. I don't know why I wanted to try to make White Christmas slice- it's not a traditional treat in our family, but for some reason I always think fondly and slightly yearningly of it around this time of the year. Because it's full of fat (yum, Copha) I haven't made White Christmas for years. I'd toy with the idea of making some, realise that I would only eat far too much of it and turn into a White Christmas-fuelled blimp, and abandon the whole idea. 'If only I could make a low fat White Christmas slice' I would deludedly think to myself whilst chowing down on some of mum's delicious Christmas fruit cake (at a thousand billion calories per slice).

Anyhow,  those crazy days of dieting are behind me, and I'm sticking to the simple plan of eating anything I want minus sugar (specifically fructose). I've lost over 13 kilos, and I'm not afraid of over-indulging because my stomach is now talking to my brain and telling it when to STOP (it speaks in capitals now). So, when mum and I were planning the Christmas menu this year, I said I would make White Christmas as a bit of a treat, and I planned to do it fructose-free.

When turning this plan into reality, I hit a few snags immediately. For those familiar with the slice, besides the Copha it is mostly made of a) sugar, b) rice bubbles, and c) dried fruit. The sugar is no problem- with a few adjustments I can make it with dextrose instead of sugar which has fructuse and glucose. Rice bubbles are out because they are nearly 10% sugar (nearly all of it added), but I have been eating a cereal which is pure puffed brown rice (nothing else added), so I decided this would make a good substitute for rice bubbles.  Simple so far.

But Sweet Poisonites (Poisoners? No, Poisonites) will know that dried fruit is a no no if you want to keep your fructose intake as low as possible. A piece of real fruit will a) contain fructose, b) contain fibre which counteracts what the fructose does in the body, and c) contain enough water to be bulky and fill you up, limiting the amount that you can eat in one go. Dried fruit does the first two, but doesn't fill you up, so you get a bunch of sugar in just a handful of sultanas. The recipe that I worked from had 1/2 cup (80g) of dried fruit- which is about 27g of fructose. Holy crap.

Looks so innocent...

I've avoided dried fruit altogether since starting sugar free, and it's not been a problem. But could I avoid it in White Christmas? Well, it is kind of integral to the slice...so, I decided that, since it's the season to be jolly and all that, I would make the White Christmas low in fructose, with limited dried fruit, diced finely to get the most out of it, dextrose instead of sugar, and rice puffs. As the slice is very rich, it's not difficult to limit yourself to a very small slice, which would mean very very little dried fruit per serve.

That was my first thought. My second thought (which came to me only as I was finishing up the low fructose version) was that this slice would taste pretty good even without the dried fruit. It has coconut and powdered milk as well as the rice puffs, and these make up the bulk of the taste. If I left out the fruit, I could therefore make a no fructose version as well. So, I did both, and here are the recipes for y'all. The no fructose one is first, the low fructose one (with the dried fruit included) is second- there are slightly different quantities to each recipe as I was experimenting a little.



No fructose White Christmas slice
1/2 cup dextrose
1/2 cup powdered milk
1.5 cups puffed rice mine are from the 'health foods' aisle of Coles and are 100% brown rice (puffed). Anything similar will probably work.
1 and 1/3 cups coconut
150g copha


Mix all dried ingredients together.  Melt copha on the stove until it is a clear liquid and then pour over the dry ingredients. Mix together well and press into a foil-lined dish or molds. Put in the fridge for a couple of hours and voila!

Low fructose White Christmas slice
1 & 1/4 cups Rice Puffs
1/2 cup full cream milk powder
1/2 cup dextrose to be honest, you could probably use a bit less- the dried fruit adds quite a bit of sweetness
1/4 cup dried fruit- I used just sultanas and dried apricots, chopped finely to give maximum value with minimum fruit
155g copha

As above, mix the dry ingredients first, add the melted copha. Press into foil-lined dish or mold- a Christmassy one if you've got it- and refrigerate.

I just happened to have a silicone mold with little Christmas trees- tis the season for making tree-shaped food.

And here are the beautiful results:

A trio of  White Christmasses- the trees are low fructose, the squares are no fructose, the hearts are a la normale (for my husband)

A note on Copha- this stuff is sold oil- hydrogenated coconut oil to be exact. They say (pure) coconut oil is incredibly good for us (if you ignore all the nay-sayers who are stuck in the 'saturated fats will kill you quicker than crack' mindset), but the word 'hydrogenated' should alert you to the fact that this stuff is a) way cheaper than pure coconut oil (being a processed, cheaper product) and b) nowhere near as good for you (and potentially quite bad for you). To be honest, if I had pure coconut oil available, I would have tried that instead but alas, I did not. So, keeping in mind that this is a one-off treat (at least for me), I stuck to the Copha. If you happen to try the above with something else instead of the Copha (e.g., pure coconut oil) then please post below to let us know how it went. I imagine it would work fine but perhaps be very very coconutty.

So that's it. Christmas conquered. Well, I also made some peanut brittle- but I'll post the recipe for that seperately- it's a bit of a marathon.

Have a lovely Christmas and New Year everyone, and a big shout out to those doing it sugar free for the first time this year- may it be merry and bright without the need for a sugar high!