Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I Love You, Rhubarb


Desserts are not off-limits on the 1972 Retro Weight Watchers Plan. They are just so utterly labor intensive, you may decide to give up and declare it's not even worth the effort.

Long before the days of fat-free frozen yogurt and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches--women had to get out their hand mixers, Knox Gelatine and saccharine and whip the crap out of evaporated skim milk to make their own ice cream. They had to make fake chocolate with crazy flavored extracts and bread crumbs. They had to do scary things with fruit and molds and dehydrated skim milk. It was really over the top and time-consuming.

My recent retro WW dessert experiment involved a little something called rhubarb. Call me crazy, but I love this time of year, because it is perfect for rhubarb!

Behold the amazing The Rhubarb Apple Bake...
  • 3 envelopes Knox Gelatine
  • 3 cups diet Cream Soda
  • 2 medium apples, peeled and sliced
  • 2 cups fresh sliced rhubarb
  • 1/2 cup artificial sweetener
  • 1 tsp apple pie spice
  • 1/2 tsp imitation butter flavor
Combine all ingredients and bake at 350 for 40 minutes.


Transfer to an attractive serving dish and chill. Makes 4 servings.

There is a recipe for a "creamy topping" that goes with this, but I'll be honest--I used fat free whipped cream from a can. I just didn't have the strength or the fortitude to pull out my mixer and get to work on it. Plus--I ran out of Knox Gelatine.


I enjoyed my retro dessert experiment and would actually make this again. It tasted like an apple/rhubarb pie without the crust.

Plus, I feel like I have finally found an edible mold. The quest is over.

5 comments:

Helen said...

That actually doesn't sound too bad or even look too bad. However, I cannot believe it calls for gelatine! I think I need to start lobbying Knox for freebies on your behalf.

Linda said...

Wow, everything has geletin! I'd have to just skip dessert like you said!

~Tessa~Scoffs said...

Bravo!

Lidian said...

I must say that looks really really yummy! :)

heidi said...

you beat me to the edible mold recipe. you win! congrats :)