Healthier baking...

I love to bake.

Much more than I prefer cooking. I think with cakes, cupcakes and cake pops, its the finishing touches and making it all look pretty that I prefer the most. I obviously can't eat everything I bake or I would be the size of a house.

More so.

So I have decided I will look at some alternative baking ingredients to make baking slightly healthier so that I can occasioanlly have some and the people I give the baking to, won't be worrying about the calories.

- Substitues for eggs: If you are making cakes, cupcakes or brownies you can replace eggs to make healthier versions. You can replace 1 egg with - 70g (1/3 cup) of applesauce OR 60g (1/4 cup) fat free yoghurt OR 1/2 mashed banana OR 60ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil.

- Sweetner instead of Sugar: Now, this one can be controversial depending on your thoughts on aspartemene but if you are OK with it, it is a calorie free alternative to sugar. Here is a conversion chart you can use so you know how much to replace.

                                         Sugar                   Sweetener

                                         1 tsp                        1/2 tsp

                                      1/4 cup               1/8 cup or 6 tsp

                                       1/3 cup                      8 tsp

                                       1/2 cup                   1/4 cup

                                        2/3 cup                   1/3 cup

                                        3/4 cup                    6 tbsp

                                       1 cup                      1/2 cup

 

- Creme Fraiche: You can swap like for like amounts of creme fraiche for marscapone cheese.

 

- Replacing Buttermilk: To make your own buttermilk and choose what fat level of milk goes into it, you need to add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to 1 cup of milk (you choose if you have skimmed, semi-skimmed or full fat, but if you're trying to cut calories, don't use full fat, obvs). Stir and let it sit for two minutes, then it is ready to be used as buttermilk.

- Olive Oil instead of Butter: This can replace the fat in most baking and cooking. It is high in antioxidents and has more flavour and nutritional value than vegetale oil or rapeseed oils. Here is a conversion chart you can use (found at www.amazingoliveoil.com) where it lets you know how much olive oil you can use to replace butter in baking. It is not a good idea to replace butter with olive oil when making cookies though as this can make them flat as it doesn't cream together as well with the sugar.

Butter	Olive Oil	Butter	Olive Oil
1 teaspoon	¾ teaspoon	5 mls	3 mls
2 teaspoons	1 ½ teaspoons	10 mls	7.5 mls
1 tablespoons	2 ½ teaspoons	15 mls	12.5 mls
2 tablespoons	1 ½ tablespoons	30 mls	22.5 mls
¼ cup	3 tablespoons	60 mls	45 mls
⅓ cup	¼ cup	80 mls	60 mls
½ cup	¼ cup + 2 tablespoons	125 mls	90 mls
⅔ cup	½ cup	160 mls	125 mls
¾ cup	½ cup + 1 tablespoon	185 mls	140 mls
1 cup	¾ cup	250 mls	175 mls
2 cups	1 ½ cups	500 mls	375 mls

 

If you give any of them a go, let me know how you get on. I made some cake pops this afternoon with oilve oil instead of butter and I couldn't tell the difference.