Today we are more health conscious than ever but it feels
like bad timing around certain holidays like Valentine's
Day. Everybody wants homemade goodies. They're as much a
part as most of our lives as our favorite song or movie. So
how do you keep the taste and reduce the guilt? It's easy;
with a few simple tips...
Most baked goods have a few common ingredients; AKA, the
usual suspects. These include shortening, oil, eggs, sugar
and flour. And this is great news for us because each of
these has a substitute or alternate that is not only just
as tasty, but also often saves us a few bucks depending on
what substitutes we use.
Shortening and Oils: This is typically some sort of fat,
butter or margarine, or vegetable/seed oil in the case of
oils. For the most part these are just there to make a dry
mix moist and add consistency. I like to use butter for
it's other healthy properties and taste. However typically
I use one third less than the recipe calls for and it
always works out fine. If you really want to cut it out
completely, consider select fruit juices or applesauce.
Most cookie and cake mixes will provide substitution
information somewhere on the package, explaining what you
can use and how much you will need.
Eggs: If you have a recipe calling for more than one egg,
it helps if you either replace one-half or more of the eggs
with low-fat egg substitute or two egg whites for each egg
being replaced. Replacing all the eggs usually cuts into
the texture and consistency so leaving one or two is OK. By
the way, you're saving 50 to 60 calories, 4 to 6 grams of
fat and a lot of cholesterol for each egg you replace with
this method.
Sugar: I don't like to drop name brands but Splenda has a
pretty good foothold on sugar substitutes available in
volume for baking. They also provide a chart that tells how
much Splenda to use to replace that much sugar. If you like
actual sugar, just go for the natural type.
Flour: Flour itself is not the big problem here; it's the
bleached all purpose flour is processed that is the
problem. Unfortunately substituting all that processed
stuff for wheat flour usually alters enough consistency
that people notice. That said, I find splitting the
difference and substituting half the bleached flour with
half what flour does the trick nicely.
That's it. Happy baking!
----------------------------------------------------
Mike Small is the entry coordinator for the Worlds Best
CookieBook cookie recipes (http://www.cookie--recipes.com).
Winning recipes include Worlds Best sugar cookie recipe
(http://www.sugar-cookie-recipe.net ) and other favorites
from around the globe.
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