Ingredients: the naked truth

We use a lot of ingredients in our recipes you aren’t going to find in your typical baking book. There is a long history of baking with unusual ingredient to create aphrodisiac recipes. Some were a little strange and made no logical sense (like an old Persian recipe that called for the baker to throw their lover’s pants into the pot with the spices, eggs and honey). We actually have very specific reasons for choosing our more exotic ingredients, and ones that are rooted in science and nutrition.

We fear that we risk taking the way the sex appeal of aphrodisiac desserts by talking about the ways they affect the inner workings of your machine. But if you look closely at aphrodisiacs, you can’t deny that the wisdom behind them is rooted in the science and medicine of the time, whatever time that might have been. The earliest proponents of aphrodisiacs were generally healers, medicine men and the like. We may not have the mystic aura of healers, but what we do have is the knowledge of nutrition on our sides. And so, to better explain why it is that we chose some of the less than typical baking ingredients our recipes call for, we’re taking a deep dive into the nutrition we injected in the name of priming your body for red-hot loving in the buff.

To many of our recipes, we added in things like extra protein to keep your body moving for a full night of passion. There are antioxidants to keep you looking and feeling young. We also added—and this one may make you laugh—extra fiber. Yes! Fiber is good for your love life! We know, the word “fiber” is not exactly synonymous with hot sex. But, without steady fiber in your diet, you may look and feel unnaturally bloated. We’re trying to help make sure you maintain good fiber intake so you’re always ready to do anything naked.

One of the other things we did that has an unsexy ring to it was try to reduce saturated fat. You’ve probably heard the recommendation to reduce saturated fat for heart health. Well, here’s the thing those cardiologists are failing to mention: anything that’s good for your heart is great for sexual performance! Never forget, good blood flow is good blood flow, whether it’s going to your heart or your throbbing loins.

For the most part, our changes are made to reduce or eliminate white sugar and/or to create more interesting textures and flavors with ingredients that also boost sexual health. Because you might not be familiar with many of our choices, we wanted to take some time to explain them. We address our out-of-the-ordinary choices of ingredients in four sections: sugars; oils; flours and chocolate. Our hope is that, by explaining how we’ve used these more unusual ingredients in our recipes, we’re giving you the confidence to start experimenting with some really cool ingredients. Everything we use here can easily be incorporated into any dessert recipe to make your desserts lighter, more interesting and certainly more aphrodisiac.

Understanding the sweet stuff

Sugar is our beloved friend and the enemy we must keep an eye on. Delahna likes to compare sugar to a crazy ex: sweet, energizing, seductive, tough to avoid and typically does more harm than good.

Of course, not all sugars are created equal. Whenever possible, we’ve used the natural sugars in fruits to help sweeten our seductive recipes. Since many fruits are aphrodisiac, you’re getting all-natural sweetness wrapped up in a food of desire. But if you’re going to make crave-worthy, indulgent desserts, you can’t live by fruit alone.

The next best choice is unrefined sugars. The term “unrefined sugars” refers to those that have been minimally processed and retain many of sugar’s nutrients. (That’s right, sugar has nutrients!) The unrefined sugars we use in this book include honey, maple syrup and molasses. You might be surprised to learn that molasses is actually a great source of several minerals important for sex, including manganese, magnesium and potassium.

The sugar we use most frequently in this book is brown sugar. (We like it because it performs similarly to white sugar but it adds moisture, flavor and a hint of nutrition. It really does great things for the texture of most baked goods.) Brown sugar is considered partially refined. The big difference between it and white sugar is that it retains a bit of sugarcane molasses. This means it’s stripped of some of its nutrients but it still manages to hold on to a little of the good stuff.

We do occasionally use white sugar. After all, it’s dessert! However, if you compare our recipes to traditional ones, you’ll find that we’ve reduced the sugars, whichever kind we’re using. That’s because we want you not only to look great—but feel great while you’re busting a move in the bedroom. And too much sugar will cause nothing but a crash.

Flours for seduction

Flour is baking’s most important ingredient. All-purpose (white) flour is the ground floor of most desserts. It’s bleached to a beautiful, snowy white and is ground to a fine powder that falls softly into place. It is designed to be perfectly neutral, a blank canvas on which to build your dessert. But because it’s built to be so perfectly bland, it is also nutritionally blank. Bland and blank—these are not words that spark a night of seduction!

Like any smart bakers, we use all-purpose flour when it’s necessary to produce the right texture, or when the flavors of more exciting flours would get in the way of a dessert’s most desired flavor sensations. But we’ve also introduced a wide variety of other flours for their weight and texture, their earthy, nutty or slightly tangy flavors and, of course, for the sex hormone-boosting nutrients they unleash on your body.

Traditionally, the word “flour” is used to refer to grain flour. But today, flours are available from a wide range of ingredients. In our recipes, we use oat, garbanzo, coconut, almond, corn and even sesame flour. Historically, oats were used to treat libido troubles in both eastern and western medicine. Today we know that oats support heart health and as we’ve mentioned, what’s good for your heart is great for your sex life. Whole oats ground to a powder is similar to whole wheat flour, only slightly lighter and a touch sweeter. It’s great for adding a flavor and nutrition punch to cookies, quick bread and muffins.

Garbanzo, or chickpea flour, is one of the most unique flours you’ll work with. Made from ground, raw chickpeas, it is packed with protein, fiber, magnesium and potassium. It’s used around the world in crepes and biscuits and we love it in place of white flour in our Love Slave Balsamic Cherry Chocolate Chunk Brownies.

Coconut flour is made from ground coconut meat and it’s loaded with protein and fiber. It’s also a dense and very absorbent flour. When using it as a substitute for all-purpose flour, use about 20% less coconut flour. Almond flour is another protein-rich flour. It brings the seductive, sweet aroma and flavor of almonds when added to any baked good. It’s also a great source of vitamin E, aka “the sex vitamin.” Unlike coconut flour, it can be used to replace the same volume of all-purpose flour. Just keep in mind that it’s flavor, weight and texture are all a little more intense (and more interesting) than all-purpose flour.

We also use ground cornmeal for our Polenta Shortcake and ground sesame seeds as a flour in our Black Sesame Wedding Cookies. These two ingredients also have aphrodisiac benefits. Cornmeal is high in manganese and magnesium. And as for sesame seeds, check out their lengthy aphrodisiac history in Chapter 1! Although neither of these is an ingredient you could really swap with all-purpose flour, they bring exciting flavors and textures when used in certain applications.

These ingredients just scratch the surface of alternative flours you can try to make your recipes more seductive. Give our recipes a try to get a taste for the textures these flours can bring to your baked goods. Of course, if you’re just a white flour kind of baker, you can swap out the exotic stuff for virginal all-purpose flour in most of these recipes. We know everyone’s taste is different, both in the kitchen and the bedroom. But just consider changing things up sometimes.

The lubricants

We’ve used a variety of oils in the book, including every baker’s favorite fat: butter. The scientific community has gone back and forth on their recommendations about butter. One year it’s bad for us, the next it might have a benefit. We’ve chosen to accept butter for its good and bad because no matter what you say, butter is sexy! However, it isn’t always the right choice of oil for a recipe and butter-based recipes aren’t your best choice if you want to eat dessert every day. Whether or not butter has any beneficial properties, we know that it’s not great for your cardiovascular health. Too much of a good thing is never good—especially when your performance in the bedroom is at stake! But don’t worry, we’ve mixed things up with plenty of choices to help you keep it fresh and exciting in the kitchen so you can keep it exciting in the bedroom.

When we’re not using butter, our recipes tend to utilize a neutral oil that works to give us the perfect texture without imparting flavor. What’s a neutral oil? What we refer to as a “neutral” oil is one that has a neutral flavor. Our favorite neutral oil is grape seed oil.

Why? Grape seed oil is one of the cleanest oils, imparting no flavor while performing perfectly (not just in baked goods but savory recipes as well). Chefs also love grape seed oil for its high smoke point. (That means it will not burn at high heat.) It’s more expensive than some of the alternatives, but it carries a lot more potential health benefits. For starters, it’s a source of vitamin E. It’s also proven beneficial in supporting heart health and as we mentioned earlier, what’s good for your heart can boost your sex life.

Another neutral oil we enjoy using is avocado oil. Avocado oil’s health benefits have been compared to those of olive oil. And, just like olives, avocados boast a legendary history as aphrodisiac. Its effects have been celebrated around the world, from the palace of Montezuma to the court of King Lous XIV and even Mae West’s boudoir. To reap the greatest aphrodisiac benefits, look for avocado oils labeled extra virgin, cold-pressed or unrefined.

For a more affordable alternative, we recommend canola oil for its neutral flavor. Because it’s a relatively recent invention, canola oil doesn’t offer a rich aphrodisiac history. But it does supply the body with some libido-supporting omega-3 fatty acids, as well as vitamin E. (You may want to check the label before buying, however, since much of the world’s canola production is genetically modified. Just check the label to see if it reads certified organic or GMO-free.) We do also like nut oils like walnut and almond oil in cooking, but be aware that they impart hints of sweet, nutty notes to the recipes.

Now when we’re looking for an oil that can impart changes to both texture and flavor, we choose coconut oil. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, which is why vegan bakers will use it for their version of lard. It’s brilliant in this sort of application! In some of our recipes, we call for coconut oil in a liquid form, which means you’ll need to warm it a little. What’s most interesting about coconut oil is the extraordinary tropical flavor it lends to recipes.

You may have heard there’s some controversy over coconut oil. The main problem is that, although it’s a plant-based fat, coconut oil has more saturated fat than butter or even lard. Saturated fat can increase your cholesterol, which is why we’re told to limit intake of saturated fat. It’s true that our recipes incorporating coconut oil will have saturated fat, but in most cases, it’s a small amount divided among multiple servings. On the up side, there is research to indicate that coconut oil may have some positive health effects. Recent studies on populations that eat a diet high in coconut oil have led researchers to believe that its benefits may include supporting thyroid function and decreasing LDL cholesterol. Coconut oil is also widely believed to have antiviral, antimicrobial and antibacterial effects. Incidentally, our favorite use for coconut oil is not cooking. Try rubbing a bit of raw, virgin coconut oil on your skin or even in your hair. It’s an unbeatable moisturizer and conditioner (and it makes you smell like a piña colada on a sun-kissed beach).

Upgrade your chocolate—because it might be the ultimate aphrodisiac…

Chocolate’s history as an instrument of desire stretches back to the discovery of the cacao plant, from which chocolate is made. Ever since man first unleashed the earthy, dark flavors of cacao beans, humankind has had a love affair with chocolate.

Early chocolate was consumed as a drink. The Mayans mixed a roasted cacao seed paste with water, cornmeal and chile to make a thick drink. (It was probably terrible by today’s standards.) The Mayans also used cocoa beans as a currency to pay prostitutes. The Aztecs, on the other hand, wouldn’t let women touch this staff of virility, reserving it for whetting the stronger sex’s appetites.

Chocolate as we know it today was invented in Europe after Cortez imported it to Spain. Although Europeans did away with bitter, chile-spiked drinks, chocolate held on to its aphrodisiac reputation.

In fact, the reputation held for centuries, until research studies over the past 20 or so years have tried to suck all the fun out of this sexual stimulant. Several scientific investigations have concluded that, although there are chemicals in chocolate that could stimulate sexual arousal, the amount is too insignificant to have the desired effect.

Fortunately, British scientists have injected the sex appeal back into chocolate by proving that women get more turned on by chocolate than by kissing. In the study, the subject’s heart rates rose 20% and they released four times more endorphins when eating chocolate than when smooching their lover. (And it turns out that men also get turned on by chocolate.) However, it was observed that more cacao-rich chocolate is more successful in turning us on. This is why, if you’re not already using rich, dark chocolates, we want to give your cacao habit an upgrade.

It may be the fact that cacao contains stimulants and antioxidants, not to mention manganese, magnesium, selenium, zinc and iron that makes it such a powerful aphrodisiac. But because it’s one of the world’s most complex foods, nobody’s quite sure. It doesn’t matter to us! But what does matter is that you get the maximum impact from your chocolate fix by choosing chocolate with a high percentage of cacao. That’s why our recipes call for dark chocolate.

We also call for high-fat cocoa powder. High-fat cocoa powders don’t necessarily bring greater aphrodisiac impact. But the flavor impact is significant. High-fat cocoa powders will add richness and intensity to your baked goods that is beyond compare. The term “high fat” isn’t something you’ll find on a label. What you have to do to tell if you’re using a high-fat cocoa powder is check the nutritional information. Look for cocoa powders with about 1 gram of fat per 5–6 gram serving.