Tweaking Tricks for Baking

Use these tweaking tricks to help you squeeze out the fat and calories in your baking and in turn help you squeeze into your cute jeans.  ;-)



Most basic baking recipes call for dry ingredients, wet ingredients, fat ingredients, and sweet ingredients.



For dry ingredients such as flour you can pretty much substitute any whole grain type flour and/or whole grain cereal (oatmeal, cream of wheat) or mix and match.  I use a scant less than it calls for when baking with whole grains to keep my baked goods moist.



For the wet ingredients you can make any substitute of skim, lowfat, reduced fat, etc. in place of whole fats.  (in place of whole milk, sour cream, yogurt, etc.)



For fat ingredients you can substitute no-sugar added applesauce cup for cup with little or no change in taste for any oil, margarine or butter that the recipe calls for.  I use a bit more applesauce to oil to help with the moistness.  For things where the flavor would be appropriate bananas, pumpkin, and plain non-fat yogurt can be substituted for the fat.



To tweak the sweet ingredients choose from these lower calorie and/or healthy substitutes :

Splenda

Molasses

Honey

Sunette

Sugar-free maple syrup

Go here for specific details on using these substitutes in your baking.



So to take this recipe I just randomly looked up, check out how I would tweak it in the parenthesis that follow each ingredient:



To Die For Blueberry Muffins





1 -1/2 c. all-purpose flour (slightly less of a mixture of whole wheat flour, little wheat germ, little oat bran)

3/4 c. white sugar (splenda, or other tweaks from above)

1/2 t. salt

 2 t. baking powder

 1/3 c. vegetable oil (applesauce or banana - or a little of both)

 1 egg

1/3 c. milk (skim)

1 c. fresh blueberries



I'm going to bake these at 375 (25 degrees less than it calls for) and check them way earlier than the original baking time (about 12 minutes) all to keep moist.  Using high fiber and sugar substitutes makes things drier and causes things to cook faster so I work real hard to keep my baked goods moist.



So, find a recipe or use one of those favorites you've had to put away because it is too fattening and get to experimenting.  Now you can enjoy those baked goods a little more often since you have some new baking tricks up your sleeve.

 



Erin