We all love baked goods, but they don’t love us! Even small treats can pack a heavy dose of sugar and fat, making it all too easy for us to exceed our recommended daily caloric intakes with just a few tasty bites. However, you needn’t give up on baked goods completely. Below are some tips for making your family’s favorite desserts a bit healthier.
10. Use a high fiber flour to partially replace white flour in recipes, such as whole-wheat flour. Whole-wheat flour, while heavier than white flour, also contains more nutrients. Don’t substitute whole-wheat flour for all the white flour in your recipe, however, or your baked goods will be more leaden than hockey pucks.
9. Cut sodium. Many dessert recipes call for more salt than is actually needed. Try using a mere 1/4 tsp of salt in most recipes instead of the amount that is called for. You can always add more salt if the flavor is not to your liking.
8. Use oil in place of butter. Most pastry and cake recipes call for large amounts of butter. Replace some of the butter in your recipe with an unsaturated fat, such as canola oil.
7. Use applesauce in place of fat. You can also replace some of the fat called for in your desserts with applesauce, which contributes a pleasant texture while also pumping up your dessert’s fiber content. Not to mention, it’s fat-free!
6. Skip the frosting, pass the sugar. Frosting is a virtual smorgasbord of unwanted calories. Try dusting your desserts with powdered sugar instead.
5. Cut nuts. Fat-filled nuts can significantly boost the calorie count of your cookies and cakes. Try making your dessert without nuts, or toasting a smaller amount of nuts before adding them to your batter. Toasting will enhance the flavor of the nuts, ensuring that you don’t need to use as much to achieve the taste you desire.
4. Use only 75% of the amount of sugar that is called for. In most cases, this will not drastically alter the flavor of your desserts–but it will cut down on their calorie count.
3. Say hello to yogurt. Yogurt has a number of applications in baking–you can substitute it for milk, butter or buttermilk, and you can also use in place of sour cream. Its light, tangy flavor can add zest to breads, coffee cakes, pastries and more.
2. Replace eggs with egg substitute. Eliminating eggs completely from your recipe will likely throw off the texture of your dessert, but you should be able to use egg substitute to replace at least half the amount of eggs called for–which means that you can cut down the amount of fat in your recipe considerably.
1. Use cocoa instead of chocolate. By substituting dry cocoa for chocolate, you can reduce your recipe’s saturated fat and sugar content. Simply mix the cocoa in with your dry ingredients, add a tablespoon of water to your wet ingredients, and blend.
