Healthy Baking Recipes?

bethhjanee

I love baking and bake at least 3 times a week but since I do it so often I end up with tonnes of sweet stuff that doesnt help my healthy eating. Just wondering if anyone has healthy baking recipes that don't include loads o fancy ingreidients as I live 40 miles away from the supermarket and the local shop doesnt stock much.

Any ideas would be greatly appreitiated!

Llamedos1960

Have you tried baking breads with nuts/seeds/fruit in?

That might be a bit more healthy than biscuits and cakes.

I'm not really an expert but, well, just a thought ... :flowerforyou:

KLiburd86

Are you on pinterest? If not it'd be worth signing up, people tend to load lots of relatively healthy baking ideas :-)

MissBabyJane

Here some advices:

Try to replace white flour with whole wheat flour, almond flour or any other kind
Baking powder with baking soda
Sugar with maple syrop, honey or fruits
Chocolate with dark chocolate or only cocoa
Milk with almond milk or any other nut milk

HappyStack

Here some advices:

Try to replace white flour with whole wheat flour, almond flour or any other kind
Baking powder with baking soda
Sugar with maple syrop, honey or fruits
Chocolate with dark chocolate or only cocoa
Milk with almond milk or any other nut milk

Almond flour, other nut flours and whole wheat flour is often more calorie dense than white flour.

Baking powder and baking soda are both leavening agents, the only chemical difference is that baking powder already has an acidic agent in it, so it reacts when it gets wet with anything, rather than only reacting when it meets something acidic like baking soda. You can't use baking soda if the recipe calls specifically for baking powder, in a cake for example, it just won't rise (cake batters lack acidity).

The other stuff is a matter for the recipe. You can't really switch out a dry product (like sugar) for a wet product (like syrup or honey) if your mix needs to be fairly dry or not sloppy wet.

Ultimately, just follow the recipe.

C1C2C3

I also enjoy baking and using basic everyday ingredients to make healthier modifications and/or recipes. I apologize in advance for the length of this post but I have tried to include some of the basics that that have worked for me.

When I am wanting to adjust a recipe to be healthier, I look at the sugar content and oil/butter amount first - these are two main high-calorie culprits. This is what I do on most of my recipes:
1.Cut back the sugar - Depending on ingredients and preferred sweetness level, the sugar amount in most recipes can be cut anywhere from a 1/4 to 1/2 without even noticing a difference!
2. Substitute sugar - if the taste of honey would complement whatever I am baking, I may use honey as a substitute, honey is not lower calorie than sugar if you compare straight across. But the sweetness is more prevalent so you can get by with less. You may end up with the same or slightly less calories but it is considered healthier than granulated sugar. Substituting honey may work better in bread and muffins than other baked goods, although it is definitely worth a try!
3..Switch out the oil or butter for 1/2 or all applesauce - This works very good in breads or muffins. Pureed pumpkin or mashed banana can be used instead of applesauce but I would only do this if you are okay with that flavor coming through.

Other observations and suggestions:
Flours - if you want to experiment with different flours, I would suggest not completely removing the white all-purpose flour at first. Perhaps try half white and half wheat. The whole wheat flour can have more of a noticeable texture than white. Also other flours, may not be a straight across substitution, for example, oat flour soaks up more moisture, so you may want to either modify the amount or add in more liquid as needed.

Muffins - You can make them fairly healthy using basic ingredients and can be a filling snack. These bran muffins are a good healthy base: http://www.food.com/recipe/buttermilk-bran-muffins-101530 or in the notes section there is a link to an even lower calorie bran muffin recipe by the same person. If you have a favorite quick bread recipe try baking in muffin tins for easy portion controlled snacks. Just adjust the baking time as necessary.

Websites & Blogs - Whatever you are hungry for just google along with key words like "skinny", "light","low-calorie" "healthy", etc. Also, check out such sites as undressedskeleton, katheatsrealfood and skinnytaste. There are plenty of great recipes in this message board as well, such as the two ingredient cookies with many variations (banana and oats - I also add chopped walnuts and cinnamon).

Another good cookie recipe are these pumpkin cookies: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/32364/old-fashioned-soft-pumpkin-cookies/detail.aspx I made this recipe with the substitutions of cutting back the sugar to 1 1/4 cup and using light butter (50 cal per T) and no glaze. It made 40 cookies at 64 calories per cookie. Next time I think i would cut the sugar back to 1 cup and if I didn't have light butter on hand I would try 4 T regular butter and 1/4 c. extra pumpkin.

I hope that helps give some ideas. Happy baking! :flowerforyou:

Francl27

Look at chocolatecoveredkatie and skinnytaste for some recipes?

Sunbrooke

You can get your baking fix with whole wheat pittas and whole wheat olive oil crackers (they are like wheat thins). I just look the recipes up on line. I have seen some for while wheat cheddar crackers that look good, but I haven't tried them. If you bake brownies, substitute half of the oil for mash, barely ripe, banana. No one has caught me doing this and the banana is cheaper than the oil if you normally use olive oil.