FEMINA HEALTHS’ Dietician, Melisa Ludick shares these handy tips with us.
Dietician, Melissa Ludick.
There are many ways to make your recipe healthier without compromising on quality or taste. The following steps set out in the table below can help you to:
– Reduce fat, dietary cholesterol, sugar, or salt.
– Choose healthier types of fat.
– Add more fibre to your recipes.
The following tips work best for cookies, muffins, cupcakes, cakes, and quick breads, rather than more delicate baked goods like angel food cake or tortes.
White Flour
Try one of these instead:
Butter,
coconut oil,
hard
margarine,
or
shortening
– Reduce the amount of fat by 1/3
– Replace with soft margarine or vegetable oil
(olive, canola, peanut, safflower, sunflower,
and soybean)
– Replace 1/3 – ¾ or the fat in your recipe with
the same amount of unsweetened applesauce,
pureed prunes (in chocolate based recipes),
pureed pumpkin, squash, or sweet potatoes, or mashed banana. Note: Reducing fat can give a dense texture to baked goods. To add air, beat
an egg white into stiff peaks and then fold into
the batter prior to baking.
Whole milk
– Choose low fat or fat free milk.
– Use unsweetened, fortified soy beverage, rice
beverage, or water.
Full fat cream cheese
– Use low fat cream cheese
– Mix equel parts low fat cottage cheese with
low fat ricotta cheese/ yogurt pureed smooth.
– Try low fat soy (tofu) cream cheese.
Full fat sour
cream
– Low fat sour cream
– Low fat or fat free pureed cottage cheese,
ricotta, or plain yogurt.
Cream
White Flour
Whipped cream topping
– Plain or low fat Greek yofurt mixed with
vanilla extract or honey.
– Whip 350ml chilled evaporated milk with 30ml lemon juice. (serve right away)
– Use frozen yogurt or well-drained low fat
vanilla yogurt (serve rigth away)
– Skip or reduce whipped cream topping.
Sugar
– Use unsweetened applesauce, dried fruit
puree, or mashed banana to replace some of the sugar.
– Replace sugar with artificial sweetener, sucralose (Splenda). Note: other artificial sweeteners are not made for baking.
– 250ml (1 cup) of Splenda is ezual to 250ml of
white table or granulated sugar or 125ml (1/2
cup) of brown sugar.
– Substitute up to ¼ of sugar in recipes with powdered milk.
Salt
– Reduce added salt in the recipe by 1/3
– ½ – Use salt-free margarine
– Use fresh herbs for flavour.
White Flour
Replace up to half the white flour with higher fibre flours like:
– whole wheat – barley – buckwheat – oat – spelt
Note: Extra baking powder may be needed
with heavier flours to keep the texture of the
product the same. Try adding 50% more baking powder.
– Add 60ml ground flaxseed, wheat bran or oatmeal to breads, muffins, or cookies.
Greasing a baking dish or pan
To prevent sticking:
– Line baking pans with parchment paper.
– Use non-stick silicon baking pans.
– Use small amount of cooking spray, or a spray bottle with vegetable oil.
– Use paper towel with vegetable oil to grease
pan.
– Use less grease and sprinkle flour to prevent
sticking.
