Creamy dips add fun to fruit

Maybe you need another idea for packing fiber and vitamins into your child’s lunch. Or maybe you’re looking for a way to convince yourself to eat more fruit. Either way, making a dip (or three) to dunk your fruit in can make it a little more enticing, and a lot more fun.

In constructing a healthful dip for fruit, the main problem lies in the base of the dip. You want something that doesn’t pile on the fat or sugar, but still is interesting enough that you want to dunk your apple wedges and strawberries in it.

We wanted to create a creamy base that could be easily flavored. For obvious reasons, the full-fat versions of cream cheese and sour cream were out. Greek-style yogurt has a great mouth feel and creaminess, but some people find it overwhelmingly tart. So we opted to use low-fat cream cheese blended with nonfat Greek yogurt. The result is creamy and luscious and is a perfect base for flavorings. As a bonus, it’s also a great way to get calcium.

Fruit Dippers

For the base:

2 cups nonfat plain Greek-style yogurt

8 ounces low-fat cream cheese

• For the chocolate:

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons honey

Pinch cinnamon

2 tablespoons fat-free milk

• For the citrus:

Zest of 1/2 lemon

Zest of 1/2 orange

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons orange juice

• For the orchard spice:

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon butter rum extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon dry ginger

Pinch ground nutmeg

Pinch ground cloves

2 tablespoons honey

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the yogurt and cream cheese. Process until completely smooth. Divide the mixture into 3 bowls.

To make the chocolate dipper, in a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, honey, cinnamon and milk until completely smooth. Add to one of the bowls of the yogurt mixture and stir until smooth.

To make the citrus dipper, stir both zests, the honey and orange juice into one of the remaining bowls of yogurt mixture.

To make the orchard spice dipper, stir the vanilla, butter rum extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and honey into the last bowl of yogurt and cream cheese.

Serve the dips with wedges of apples, pears and peaches, and with berries.

Yield: 10 servings, each serving represents 2 tablespoons of each dip for a total of 6 tablespoons

Approximate nutrition per serving : 130 calories, 5 grams fat (3 grams saturated, 29 percent fat calories), 6 grams protein, 18 grams carbohydrate, 15 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 105 milligrams sodium.