Calories per slice?

Aguminus
Aguminus Posts: 42 Member
edited November 2024 in Recipes
I love baking fresh bread, muffins, cakes and cookies to have for breakfast or as a snack to nibble on, but since I started counting my calories on MFP (been 24 days now), I haven't made anything, simply because I don't know how many calories would a piece of cake be. It's confusing.
Could anyone please help me figure out how to do it? Please :'(

Replies

  • Aguminus
    Aguminus Posts: 42 Member
    Thank you :smile: I'll try that
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,751 Member
    crazyravr wrote: »
    livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
    Use the recipe builder - weigh all ingredients pre cooking to get accurate calorie totals, then either say you've made X portions (maybe easier for muffins/cupcakes if you make them the same size), or weigh the finished product, with the total grams being the number of serves; when you serve yourself a portion, weigh it, and the grams is the number of serves you eat.

    No need to be this exact to be honest, but err on the "more" rather than less side of things.
    Build whatever you are making in recipe builder using USDA entries and RAW ingredients by WEIGHT.
    #1. Divide your final product into whatever number of servings you are going to have and log it.
    #2. Weight each piece of bread / cake and log it.

    The exactness would depend on how exact you need to be. If I was making something I planned to eat all to myself, I would just say X serves and divide it as evenly as possible. If it was something I was only eating a portion of I'd likely be more exact when determining how much I'd eaten.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    As stated above, just treat it like a normal recipe. Total the calories of ingredients and then weigh the final product so you have a reference for serving sizes.

    Alternatively, if I have a dessert that I didn't make I'll sometimes just call it a nice round 350-400 calories (for a smallish reasonable serving), or closer to 750-800 for a large restaurant-sized portion (which are usually sized to be shared).
  • Aguminus
    Aguminus Posts: 42 Member
    Thank you guys a lot for helping me with that.
    At least now I'm not that confused as I was before :smiley:
    I'll try to make a cake tomorrow and see how I can count that
    Thank you all again !
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    I'd do exactly what @leggup said, except for step 5. I enter the total weight of the finished cake as the recipe's number of servings. This means that an individual "serving" would be one gram/ounce/whatever unit you used.

    Then, when I weigh my piece of cake, I enter the number of grams/ounces/whatever as my number of servings. So if my piece of cake if 57 grams, I enter it as 57 one gram servings.
  • ktekc
    ktekc Posts: 879 Member
    apullum wrote: »
    I'd do exactly what @leggup said, except for step 5. I enter the total weight of the finished cake as the recipe's number of servings. This means that an individual "serving" would be one gram/ounce/whatever unit you used.

    Then, when I weigh my piece of cake, I enter the number of grams/ounces/whatever as my number of servings. So if my piece of cake if 57 grams, I enter it as 57 one gram servings.

    that's what i do, and why i have a scale that can weigh a full crock pot. :)
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    Me too ... ^^^
  • Aguminus
    Aguminus Posts: 42 Member
    If i weigh the ingredients raw and counted their calories in total. Will the calories of the products change after baking? I heard that calories are not the same when something is cooked vs raw
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
    Aguminus wrote: »
    If i weigh the ingredients raw and counted their calories in total. Will the calories of the products change after baking? I heard that calories are not the same when something is cooked vs raw

    Baking (dry heat cooking) will cause some water (zero Calories) to evaporate. The loss of just water will not change the overall Calories that were there when totaling all individual ingredients. The loss of water will reduce the total weight, and the final product will weigh less for the same amount of Calories (i.e. be more Calorie dense).

    However, if you are baking something that loses liquid that may be more than water, such as fats and oils, then the total Calories may be reduced by a little.
  • WilmaValley
    WilmaValley Posts: 1,092 Member
    What great ideas, thanks!!!!
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    Also, if you do a lot of bread baking, I love my breadbox and slicing guide (Amazon) - it's a convenient place to keep a loaf of bread, and I can cut uniform slices every time, which means I skip weighing and just log based on the # of slices per loaf, which is always the same as long as I use the same size loaf pan, as the pan controls the length of the loaf. Yes, the center slices tend to be a bit larger than the others, but it all works out in the end as long as you don't eat all the center slices and give away the slices nearer the ends to others :wink:

    I bake regularly, so I have gotten my money's worth out of that one.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    Aguminus wrote: »
    If i weigh the ingredients raw and counted their calories in total. Will the calories of the products change after baking? I heard that calories are not the same when something is cooked vs raw

    - You will want to re-weigh the total after cooking and use the final weight if you will be logging by weight. (It will weigh less due to loss of water). The calories will all still be there (exception being if a pool of oil that you accounted for or sauce will be remaining in the pan and not consumed).
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    crazyravr wrote: »
    rankinsect wrote: »
    Also, if you do a lot of bread baking, I love my breadbox and slicing guide (Amazon) - it's a convenient place to keep a loaf of bread, and I can cut uniform slices every time, which means I skip weighing and just log based on the # of slices per loaf, which is always the same as long as I use the same size loaf pan, as the pan controls the length of the loaf. Yes, the center slices tend to be a bit larger than the others, but it all works out in the end as long as you don't eat all the center slices and give away the slices nearer the ends to others :wink:

    I bake regularly, so I have gotten my money's worth out of that one.

    Per slice will never be as accurate as actually weighting it. Never. The slices are never the same. Just look at the loaf. Its not uniform throughout.

    It should average out well enough though (unless you are sharing or tossing leftovers and you or someone else is picking and choosing larger/smaller/more or less airy pieces and throwing off the statistics).
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    crazyravr wrote: »
    Per slice will never be as accurate as actually weighting it. Never. The slices are never the same. Just look at the loaf. Its not uniform throughout.

    True, but accuracy over time is more important than accuracy on any given day. One slice may vary a lot, but over time when you've eaten 50 slices or 100 slices, the total calories you've eaten of bread are very, very close to 50 or 100 times the "per slice" calories. That's true even if you're sharing the bread, as long as you don't deliberately try to have others eat the smaller pieces.

    And if you're the one eating the whole loaf, it really doesn't matter because you'll underestimate just as much as you overestimate - it all evens out by the end of the loaf.
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