How to make the best Strawberry Santas for Christmas healthy snacks
Christmas is notoriously a time when healthy eating easily goes out the window in place of lavish and rich meals, countless snacks and calorific drinks. Usually, the only sign of fruit is either marzipan lumps shaped like oranges or pears or soaked in alcohol and made into Christmas cake. However, stop the negative thinking and look at these Strawberry Santas – a sweet snack to tantalise your tastebuds and they can be healthy, too.
There are a few different ways in which you can make them, and you will probably find that one suits you and your family better than the others. They are great as a snack on their own or perhaps with a Christmas Hot Chocolate.
Version 1- the healthiest strawberry Santas
Ingredients needed
Strawberries
Bananas
Black gel icing
Quark
Sweetener or vanilla essence
Method
Cut the leaves and base off the strawberries then cut a clean slice around 1cm thick.
Next, peel and chop a banana into slices around 1.5cm thick. Then, mix a couple of tablespoons of quark with sweetener, to taste.
Using some quark mixture to stick (this also forms Santa’s white beard and hair), assemble the banana slice on top of the strawberry slice and then place the remainder of the strawberry on top.
Finally, use the black gel icing to add two eyes to the banana slice. And there you have it, a delicious but healthy Strawberry Santa that everyone will enjoy.
Version 2
Ingredients
Strawberries
150g Cream cheese
2tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
A handful of chocolate chips
Method
This version is a little sweeter and has slightly more calories, but again, if it hits the spot, it is worth it and far better than a lot of the usual festive fancies.
First, prepare the strawberries in the same way as version 1 by cutting off the base and leaves and then making a 1cm slice.
Next, mix cream cheese with icing sugar and vanilla essence. You could use a hand whisk for this (and burn off a few extra calories at the same time) or, and this is my preference, use an electric whisk.
Next, assemble your Santas by placing the small slice of strawberry onto a plate or platter, adding a generous dollop of the cream cheese mixture, and then placing the remaining strawberry on top.
Now, add two chocolate chips to create his eyes. Finally, pipe, using a small tip, a blob onto the end of Santa’s hat.
Alternative Versions
If you are not concerned about the calorie and fat content of the Strawberry Santas, you could substitute cream for cream cheese in Version 2. Whisk double or whipping cream with 1 tbsp icing sugar to a stiff consistency.
Instead of using icing for the white bit on the hat, try melting a small amount of white chocolate and piping that on. You could do the same with milk or dark chocolate for the eyes.
Try making a larger first slice of strawberry, creating a full-bodied Santa instead. At that size, you should also be able to add buttons using chocolate chips or melted chocolate.
However you decide to create your Strawberry Santas, I hope you have fun making them and even more fun eating them!
