Indulgence without guilt

It’s an easy rule — 200 calories.

That’s how I get through the holidays without giving up the sweets that are so essential to the season. Keep the per-serving calorie count to fewer than 200 and indulge away. Heck, for 200 calories you can have two desserts.

Face it: If you deprive yourself, you won’t enjoy the holidays. Or if you’re like me, you’ll abstain for the first few days, then promptly inhale everything not tied down until midnight on Dec. 31.

But 200 calories is reasonable. There are plenty of desserts that work. And since the fun of the holidays is grazing on a multitude of desserts, the lower calorie count makes such indulgences less dangerous.

The ultimate diet dessert is angel food cake, which was the official cake of birthdays in my perpetually dieting family, at least until fat-free frozen-yogurt cakes came on the scene during the late 1980s.

Angel food cake clocks in at fewer than 900 calories and 3 grams of fat — for the entire cake. That’s thanks to a simplicity of ingredients: eggs, flour, sugar and flavorings.

For an experiment, I recently baked an angel food cake using a no-calorie sugar substitute in place of half the sugar called for in a standard recipe. It baked up perfectly, but with half the sugar calories.

At that rate, even a dieter can afford a double portion of cake. And be wild, top it with some fat-free frozen yogurt.

Eggnog is another favorite holiday indulgence of mine. I can drink it like water. Problem is, the fat-free versions at the grocer taste like water.

So I started investigating making my own. The catch there was that while I am otherwise brave in the kitchen, I am terrified of raw eggs. After much searching I found a cooked recipe for full-fat eggnog.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup sugar. I used half real sugar and half sugar substitute with great success. Next, the milk. Various recipes call for whole milk or half and half. I wanted a lower-fat version, but feared watery results with low-fat milk.

With a bit of looking, I discovered a brand of fat-free half and half that has no added sugar (most dairy drinks seem to load up the sugar as they remove the fat).

The result was simply amazing — and amazingly easy. It was the richest, creamiest eggnog I’ve ever had. In fact, diet or not, I doubt I ever would go back to the real thing.

The catch with a cooked eggnog is that it is easy to overcook. For safety, it is important to let the eggnog reach 160 degrees, but if you don’t stir constantly, the eggs can overcook and you’ll end up with custard.

That said, even the custard can be saved. I was distracted during one test batch and ended up with custardy lumps in my eggnog. Reluctant to toss it, I poured the entire batch in the blender. Thirty seconds later I had perfect, creamy eggnog.

It is important to let the eggnog chill thoroughly. Until then, it will taste like custard, not eggnog. But the flavor changes dramatically once it has cooled.

For more great low-cal holiday sweets, take a look at “The Essential EatingWell Cookbook” (The Countryman Press, 2004, $29.95) by the folks at EatingWell magazine.

Like the recipes in the magazine, those in the book offer healthier takes on both the common and the unexpected without making them taste like health food.

The book’s lemon pudding cake is a refreshing dessert with just 162 calories, but plenty of flavor and no tinkering. It’s a great cake that just happens to be low-cal.

With calorie counts like that, you won’t have to pick and choose. Have two slices with a side of angel food cake and a tall frosty mug of eggnog to wash it all down.

Low-Fat Cooked Eggnog

6 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 quart fat-free half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

In a large saucepan, whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt. Add the half and half.

Heat over a medium-low flame, stirring constantly, until a candy thermometer reads 160 degrees. Eggnog should coat the back of a spoon. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and nutmeg.

Allow eggnog to cool 10 minutes, then transfer to a pitcher. Refrigerate 2 hours, or until cold.

Yield: 8 servings

Lemon Pudding Cake

From EatingWell magazine’s “The Essential EatingWell Cookbook,” The Countryman Press, 2004, $29.95.

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup 1 percent milk

2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest

1/2 cup lemon juice

2 tablespoons butter, melted

3 large eggs, separated

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bring a full kettle of water to a boil. Coat a 9 1/2 -inch deep-dish glass or ceramic pie pan (6-cup capacity) with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar, flour and salt. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the milk, lemon zest, lemon juice, butter and egg yolks. Whisk until smooth.

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites in another bowl until they form soft peaks. Gradually add remaining sugar, beating until the egg whites are glossy.

Fold the egg whites into the batter, which will be thin and a bit lumpy. Transfer the batter to the prepared pie pan.

Place the pie pan inside a larger shallow pan. Place the pans in the oven, then use the kettle to pour enough hot water in the outer pan to come almost halfway up the pie pan.

Bake until the top is golden and caky, with soft lemon pudding below, about 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve warm.

Yield: 8 servings

Nutrition information per serving: 162 calories, 5 grams fat (3 grams saturated, 28 percent fat calories), 4 grams protein, 26 grams carbohydrate, no dietary fiber, 79 milligrams sodium.