Does your brain make room for dessert?

The scientific explanation for why we always have room for dessert is called sensory-specific satiety . “After a while of eating a food, your senses get tired of it,” says Picano. “But when you change it up, your tastebuds get excited again.”

What kind of desserts are you going to make if there is a celebration at home?

We favor desserts made in individual portions, such as cookies and cupcakes , or ones that can be easily portioned out—think bar cookies, sheet cakes, and Bundts—so there is less to fuss over at the last minute. We have included a few easy treats, like fruit crisps, that you could scoop and serve at the party.

Does sugar increase stomach size?

Sweet Water Magnet: Sugar, a highly soluble molecule, attracts water molecules into the stomach. This influx of water increases the overall volume of stomach contents , potentially leading to a feeling of fullness. Stretching the Limits: As the sugar solution fills the stomach, it stretches the stomach wall.

What happens to your body when you eat dessert every day?

“ The body converts excess sugar into fat, impacting metabolism and promoting obesity .” She added that consuming sugary treats regularly can elevate triglyceride levels, even fostering cardiovascular issues.

What is the hardest dessert to make at home?

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Is it true your stomach makes room for dessert?

Several studies have looked at human's uncanny ability to always find room for dessert, and they've all come up with a similar answer. We do have extra room for dessert, mainly because of something known as sensory-specific satiety.

What does it mean when you always have room for dessert?

The correct phrase is "There's always room for dessert." The phrase means that even if you've eaten a full meal, you can always find a little space in your stomach to enjoy something sweet at the end of your meal . The phrase doesn't refer to a physical room, but rather a metaphorical space in your stomach.

How does your stomach make room for dessert?

Consuming sugar relaxes your stomach, making it possible to fit more in . “When we have sugar, we start to feel less full and have more capacity to consume,” Russell says. So, not only is ice cream different from ham, it's also sweet and tasty and gives us more room to eat.

Does your stomach expand to make room for dessert?

Researchers from the Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital in Norway back this theory, adding that the sugar in sweet foods stimulates a reflex that actually expands the stomach .

19 July 4th Dessert Recipes You'll Find Room For (We Promise) (2024)

4th of July

Think you won't have room for dessert at your July 4th cookout? Just wait till you see these recipes.

Rabi Abonour

Rabi Abonour is a planner specializing in transportation, but has also been a photojournalist, writer, and editor for several online and print publications.

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Published July 02, 2019

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19 July 4th Dessert Recipes You'll Find Room For (We Promise) (2)

It's practically your patriotic duty to stuff your face with hot dogs and potato salad on July 4th, so we understand if you don't usually leave room for dessert. But after a big meal of smoky grilled meats (maybe a few hours after), a little something sweet can be just the pick-me-up you need. Plus, entertaining is a great opportunity to whip up all sorts of tasty desserts you may not take the time to make just for yourself—succulent grilled peaches and juicy strawberry pie to celebrate peak summer-fruit season, cooling homemade ice creams and popsicles, a light and creamy basil mousse that showcases just how well the fragrant herb pairs with dairy. Whatever strikes your fancy, you'll find the perfect match in this collection of 19 Fourth of July dessert recipes.

Grilled Peaches and Pound Cake With Cider Vinegar Caramel Sauce
To really get the most out of that roaring fire in your grill, use it for your dessert along with your burgers. All three elements of this elegant dish—peaches, caramel sauce, and pound cake—are given some time over the fire, where they absorb a tantalizing whiff of smoke to complement their sweetness. We cut the peaches in half and dip them in sugar before placing them on the grates, allowing them to develop a crisp crust. You could certainly make your own pound cake, but the final dish here is so delicious, no one will notice at all if you go store-bought.
Get the recipe for Grilled Peaches and Pound Cake With Cider Vinegar Caramel Sauce
Grilled Banana Boats With Peanut Butter, Chocolate, and Marshmallows
For a simpler grilled dessert that's also kid-friendly, it doesn't get much easier than stuffing split-open bananas with candy, chocolate, and marshmallows, then grilling them right in their peels for a messy, melty treat. Our recipe calls for mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips, but the sky's really the limit—just set out a spread of possible fillings and let your guests choose their own adventures.
Get the recipe for Grilled Banana Boats With Peanut Butter, Chocolate, and Marshmallows
See Also
Homemade Tater Tots Recipe Classic Jewish Chopped Chicken Liver Recipe How to Make Crispy Fried Potatoes (Best Recipe) - Restless Chipotle recipes – Page 5 – Mama's Gotta Bake
Sunny Lemon Bars
These outrageously bright and tart lemon bars start with a fully cooked custard made with equal parts whole eggs and egg yolks, producing a soft, rich texture that's just firm enough to slice without falling apart. The extra yolks help stabilize the custard without the need for cornstarch, keeping it stunningly clear. A bit of lemon zest added to the simple butter-and-sugar crumb fortifies the bars' citrusy flavor.
Get the recipe for Sunny Lemon Bars
DIY Pudding Pops
A popsicle on a hot day is one of life's purest simple pleasures. It's hard to say no even to a plastic-wrapped pop from the freezer section, but these homemade takes on Jell-O's long-discontinued Puddin' Pops will truly blow the crowd away. What's more, they're easy to whip up, using a simple vanilla custard thickened with tapioca starch. To make them extra special, dip the pops in a mixture of chocolate and coconut oil to form a crispy shell, then coat in sprinkles, cocoa nibs, or another crunchy topping of your choice.
Get the recipe for DIY Pudding Pops
Continue to 5 of 19 below.
Tamarind and Palm Sugar Popsicles With Chili Salt
Inspired by the sticky, spicy-sweet tamarind candy Pelon Pelo Rico, these thoroughly grown-up popsicles package the same flavors into a refreshingly frosty treat. Though harder to find than white sugar or standard brown, palm sugar lends a unique caramelly sweetness to offset the tart tamarind concentrate, while a dip in chili salt mixed with malic acid gives the pops a little hot, sour bite.
Get the recipe for Tamarind and Palm Sugar Popsicles With Chili Salt
Fresh Basil Mousse
We don't often think of basil as a dessert ingredient, but to anyone who's ever enjoyed a Caprese salad or a margherita pizza, it should be no surprise that it pairs well with dairy. What's a little more surprising is the inclusion here of white chocolate, which has a floral aroma that complements basil beautifully and helps add richness and body to this light mousse. It's thickened with gelatin, making it easier than an egg-based version and safe for any egg-allergic friends.
Get the recipe for Fresh Basil Mousse
Texas Sheet Cake
Everything's bigger in Texas, and that includes dessert—this supersized cake will easily feed a party of two dozen Independence Day revelers. (It also keeps well enough that a smaller group could nibble on it for a week.) The buttermilk-enriched chocolate batter is poured into a thin layer in a sheet pan, where it bakes up fluffy and moist. But the real magic happens when it's doused in molten fudge icing—the fudge seeps into the cake, turning the top of it delightfully gooey. A layer of toasted pecans gives the otherwise soft cake and fudge some crunch.
Get the recipe for Texas Sheet Cake
Homemade Brownie Mix
Stella's best from-scratch brownies are indeed fantastic, but they require browned butter and a couple hours' worth of prep time. If you're looking for a quicker route to brownies, try stirring together a batch of this homemade brownie mix in advance. On the day of, simply add the wet ingredients, pulse in a food processor or mix by hand, pour, and bake. Made with Dutch-process cocoa powder, chopped dark chocolate, malted milk powder, and refined coconut oil, the mix will last for up to a year on the shelf (or until the expiration date of the coconut oil), and it tastes better than anything you can buy.
Get the recipe for Homemade Brownie Mix
Continue to 9 of 19 below.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies are an obvious crowd-pleaser, whether you choose to make our ultra-involved, best-ever cookies or an old-fashioned, quick and easy variety. But if you'll be celebrating the Fourth with anyone who eschews eggs, dairy, or both, this vegan recipe will make not only them happy but those with no such dietary restrictions, too. Here, an oat slurry stands in for eggs, coconut oil replaces the butter, and a mix of dry malt extract and nutmeg gives the cookies some of the toasty, nutty flavors that butter takes on in the oven. We add hand-chopped dark chocolate to the batter rather than commercial chips, for better flavor and to help thicken the dough.
Get the recipe for Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream
Can't decide between cookies and ice cream? This recipe gives you the best of both worlds, but there are no crushed-up cookies involved. Instead, we opt for a deconstructed approach, mixing crispy oats, crunchy pecans, and chewy dried fruit into a brown sugar base infused with cinnamon, toasted oats, and vanilla bean. The oats do double duty—we steep them into the base to give it a nutty flavor, then bake them into clusters to use as a mix-in.
Get the recipe for Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream
The Best Cherry Pie
You don't need any magical tricks to turn out a delicious, perfectly thickened cherry pie—just the right ratio. Pair the fruit (fresh or frozen cherries will work great) with 25% of its weight in sugar and 5.5% of its weight in tapioca starch, and the filling will come out thick but juicy every time. Using a mix of different cherry varieties, sweet and sour, yields the best flavor.
Get the recipe for The Best Cherry Pie
The Best Blueberry Pie
The best part about the above ratio from our cherry pie is that it works perfectly for many other fruit pies, too (though not all—apple and peach pies, for example, need a different treatment). Here, that means blueberries, preferably a mix of cultivated and wild for greater depth of flavor. As pretty as ceramic and stoneware pie plates may look, you'll actually get a crispier crust that's less prone to sogging with inexpensive tempered glass.
Get the recipe for The Best Blueberry Pie
Continue to 13 of 19 below.
Fresh and Creamy Lime Pie
A twist on an old-fashioned lemon cream pie, this tart, bright pie is akin to a cross between Key lime and lemon meringue—and just as delicious as that sounds. We cook the simple custard on the stovetop, then pour it into a blind-baked whole wheat crust, which we find delivers a graham cracker–like flavor that pairs nicely with the lime. It's all topped off with fluffy peaks of meringue that toast to a nutty brown in the oven.
Get the recipe for Fresh and Creamy Lime Pie
Grasshopper Ice Cream Pie
Another dessert of days past, grasshopper pie was traditionally made by mixing crème de menthe, crème de cacao, and cream with melted marshmallows. Our updated take uses a custard filling that's decidedly more grown-up, flavored with Fernet Branca (to enhance the minty flavor while offsetting the sweetness) and a dash of mint extract, plus melted dark chocolate instead of the usual chocolate liqueur. An intense cocoa-nib caramel drizzled over the top completes the dessert.
Get the recipe for Grasshopper Ice Cream Pie
Summer Strawberry Pie
It's one thing to make a pie that's served cold, but in July, the real win is one that keeps all the prep work cold, too. This summery pie requires no baking and no cooking, unless you count a quick trip to the microwave to melt the gelatin. That helps to thicken a filling of strawberry purée and macerated fruit, which we pour into a homemade graham cracker crust, then refrigerate until set.
Get the recipe for Summer Strawberry Pie
No-Bake Cheesecake With Freeze-Dried Fruit
As much as we love our seasonal berries and peaches, you don't need great summer fruit to make a great summer fruit dessert. The moisture in fresh fruit will actually ruin a no-bake cheesecake, so we turn to powdered freeze-dried fruit instead—you can order all sorts online, including strawberries and blueberries, bananas, and cherries. Think of our recipe as a template, and make it your own by experimenting with different combinations of fruit and crust. You can't go wrong with strawberry and Oreos, banana and Biscoff, or mango and gingersnaps, but those are just for starters.
Get the recipe for No-Bake Cheesecake With Freeze-Dried Fruit
Continue to 17 of 19 below.
American Flag Fruit Salad
An American flag–shaped dessert is a time-honored tradition on the Fourth of July, and this one happens to be exceptionally easy as well. Artfully arranging berries, cherries, banana, and bits of apple turns a plain old fruit salad into a patriotic centerpiece. Of course, feel free to swap out these specific fruits for whatever appropriately colored options look best at your local market.
Get the recipe for American Flag Fruit Salad
Fruity No-Churn Ice Cream
This ice cream calls for freeze-dried fruit, which makes for a brilliantly bright and colorful dessert. Plus, you can store this no-churn ice cream in the freezer for up to three weeks, and pull it out right as the last burgers come off the grill.
Get the recipe for Fruity No-Churn Ice Cream
No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream Pie
This frozen pie is just the thing when the weather is too hot to even consider turning on the oven. The light and airy filling is made by combining billowy Swiss meringue with fluffy whipped cream. The pure vanilla flavor of the filling pairs nicely with a chocolate cookie crumb crust, or use lightly spiced speculoos cookies. Finished with a generous shower of rainbow sparkles, this is about as fun and festive as a summer dessert gets.
Get the recipe for No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream Pie