Diabetes Recipes
Low-Fat Baking Tips
If it's fat you're looking to reduce, here are some ways to keep the flavor and lose the fat.1. Substitute fruit purées for fat: Recipes can easily be converted into lower-fat versions when a fruit purée, such as prune purée or apple or pear butter is used to replace much, but not all of the oil or butter. You’ll have to experiment with your recipes, but we’ve found 75 percent purée and 25 percent oil or butter to be a pretty reliable ratio.
2. Flour: Low fat baked goods will be more tender if you switch from all-purpose flour to cake flour. Milled from soft wheat, cake flour contains less gluten than all-purpose flour, which comes from hard wheat. Gluten turns baked goods tough and elastic, which is OK in yeast breads, but not in quick breads or cakes. To boost the fiber content in quick breads or muffins, replace about half of the wheat flour (all-purpose or cake flour) with whole-wheat pastry flour.
3. Flavor: Modifying recipes is a two-step process. After you have substituted low fat ingredients for high fat ones, you need to pay attention to flavor. Without the fat to carry the flavor, low fat baked goods tend to be bland. Generally, we double the quantity of vanilla in a recipe (always use pure vanilla extract). You can safely increase spices by as much as 50 percent. Experiment cautiously until you find the right taste for your recipe.
4. Cocoa: Using unsweetened cocoa powder, rather than chocolate, to flavor chocolate desserts cuts the fat dramatically. One ounce of semisweet chocolate contains 8 grams of fat, while 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder has only 1.5 grams of fat. Dutch-process cocoa produces a richer flavor in low fat baked goods, resulting in a mellower chocolate flavor with a darker color.5. Sour cream substitutes: In recipes for cakes, muffins and quick breads, replace sour cream with plain or vanilla nonfat yogurt, or nonfat sour cream. This will save you 24 grams of fat per cup! Reduced-fat sour cream is also an option, but you will save less fat.
6. Nuts: Many varieties contribute a distinctive flavor and appealing crunchy texture to baked goods. Although nuts are high in fat, containing about 15 grams per ounce, the type of fat is mostly unsaturated. Rather than eliminating nuts from your recipes, use smaller quantities, cut them into a smaller dice to allow them to distribute more evenly throughout the recipe, and toast them to intensify the flavor.
SOURCE:
EW Communications, L.P., 1996
Reviewed by Susan Weiner, R.D., M.S., C.D.E., C.D.N. 3/08