From: SkinnyMs.
Butter,
cream and rich chocolate can turn even the most humdrum pastries into
little pieces of heaven, but their fat content isn’t exactly healthy.
But with a little experimentation and a handful of healthy baking
tricks, even the most decadent desserts can be made diet-friendly and as
delicious as ever.
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Add Fruits and Vegetables
Rather
than going all-in with butter and oil, use half of what the recipe
calls for and replace the rest with pureed fruit or vegetables. Not only
does this substitution add natural sweetness (read: you can probably
decrease the sugar, too), a lot of these healthy alternatives contain
pectin, which helps create a similar texture to full-fat baked goods.
And best of all, there are plenty of options: Try unsweetened applesauce
in muffin recipes worth waking up for, mashed sweet potato in spice
cakes, or prune puree in brownies and best-ever chocolate cake recipes.
Keep Dairy Light
It’s
no secret that rich dairy ingredients make baked goods all the more
mouthwatering, but there are ways to cut fat here, too. For cakes with
cream cheese frosting, like classic carrot cake, swap full-fat cream
cheese with its reduced-fat counterpart for a quick and easy
health-conscious alternative. Heavy cream can be substituted with
evaporated skim milk, and fat-free milk typically makes a fine
replacement for whole milk. Low-fat yogurt can not only take the place
of its full-fat version, but can be used in place of sour cream, as
well.
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Trim a Little Off the Top
Let’s
face it, so many recipes pile on an inordinate amount of frosting,
icing and filling. This seems even truer now than it has in the past
because of the bakery-style cupcake craze. Some of those frosting towers
can have up to 1/2 cup frosting to create Instagram-worthy swirls. Most
frostings and fillings can be reduced by 25 percent without missing
any, thin glazes can be reduced even more. This is true even for cakes
that seem made for frosting-lovers!
Get Smarter with Chocolate
The
gooey goodness of chocolate chip cookies may seem irreplaceable, but
just a little substitution goes a long way in cutting the fat. Next time
you’re whipping up a batch, go lighter on the morsels and add a little
cocoa powder to get the same chocolaty flavor, but less fat. If you’re
feeling adventurous, add a dash of instant espresso powder to chocolate
cakes and cookies to bring out the chocolate flavor (without making your
dessert taste like coffee).
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Try Vegan Recipes
It
turns out that a lot of the fat in baked goods comes from animal
products that are typically high in saturated fat. By using vegan
recipes—like ours for vegan chocolate chip cookies—you can skip the
experimentation of your own and get right to baking a tested and
taste-bud-approved treat that’s probably lower in unhealthy saturated
fat. Watch out for tropical oils, though. They’re sometimes used in
vegan recipes, but are high in saturated fat.
It
might take a try or two to bake things to grandma-approved perfection,
so keep an eye on your measurements and check on bakes more often than
you would otherwise. The extra effort will go a long way towards making
your favorite treats a little easier on the waistline.
You won’t miss any of the fat in these lightened up sweet treats!
See more at: Skinny Ms.
