Figuring out calories in homamade things...

Hericksen · May 2012

I want to know if there is an easy way to make something like homemade hot pockets for example, and being able to figure out how many calories are in them. If I make some pizza dough to use as the bread, for example, and I roll it out and put some sauce and filling on it, more crust over top, and then use a cutting and sealing tool that I have, how can I find out the calories from the bread since it might vary in thickness from one time to another, and some excess dough gets cut away when I cut and seal them?

I was thinking I'd make the dough and then separate it into equal blobs and roll out the blobs individually (2 blobs rolled out would make up a top and a bottom, but then there is still excess that gets cut away and again, the thickness, could I roll out the dough to the same thickness each and every time, with each one, so they all end up with the same amount of calories?

The tool I want to use is a pampered chef cut n seal. I've made them with it before, months ago before I joined MFP.
They were easy to make and we all loved them, but I haven't tried to make them since then because I never could figure out how to calculate the dough.

Has anyone made something similar and have an easy way to ensure that all of them would be made equally and figuring out the calories in each one?

As a side note, anyone have a really good healthier pizza crust recipe?

angeldaae · May 2012

Under the "FOOD" tab, click "Recipes." There is a recipe builder that allows you to enter all the ingredients for food you cook and then set the number of portions it will make. That way you will know the calories per serving.

ETA: Regarding the dough, I would weight the dough before adding it into the recipe builder, and then once you made the pizza pockets, weigh the scraps you had left over. Subtract the weight of the scraps from the total weight of the dough to find out how much you used.

Linda_Darlene · May 2012

I enter in my own recipes and get a nutritional and calorie breakdown. It is a pretty simple process!

ebenso1 · May 2012

I know what you mean, sometimes it's hard to figure out calories in homemade things. I guess my suggestion would be to have it be a guesstimate. Divide the dough like you say and just count the excess you throw away, consider that a "bonus". I say better to err on the side of caution then to go over accidentally. That dough probably won't account for many calories anyway. Good luck

pholbert · May 2012

A food scale. Weigh them before and after.

Hericksen · May 2012

Edited to add, this is in response to the first reply. There were no other replies at the time.

Yeah, I know how to do that, I do it all the time, but it's easier to do it for things that are easier to portion out.
Dough seems harder to ensure that each one has the same amount of dough since it can be off a little bit depending on how thick or thin it's rolled out. Of course I'd try to make them all about the same, but if I was off, they would all be a little different.

andreamkelly · May 2012

I use the recipe tab too. If you have a food scale, you can weigh each 'blob' then weigh the parts you cut off to know the 'net' amount of the ending crust. Sometimes I just leave the whole amount in. I rarely eat an entire meal, even though I log the whole meal in my diary. I'm hoping this makes up for when I 'accidentally' taste something while I'm cooking. Bad habit I'm trying to break!

EvilPink · May 2012

Thumbs up for the recipe tab. Just add your ingredients and it does all the work for you!

cmayfield3 · May 2012

You can put a chopstick or wooden spoon handle on either side of the dough, underneath the rolling pin. This keeps the dough at a uniform width because you can't roll it any thinner than however much the chopstick sticks up from the counter. (I hope that makes sense!) EDIT: Found a picture of what I mean: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kY56ljkQjOk/TjzfApr-S_I/AAAAAAAAIhs/m8h8OKGXPbk/s1600/DSC04576+%282%29.jpg

Then use the trick of subtracting the weight of the unused scraps from the weight of the entire batch of dough. You should get really close this way.

Hericksen · May 2012

I know what you mean, sometimes it's hard to figure out calories in homemade things. I guess my suggestion would be to have it be a guesstimate. Divide the dough like you say and just count the excess you throw away, consider that a "bonus". I say better to err on the side of caution then to go over accidentally. That dough probably won't account for many calories anyway. Good luck

That sounds like the safest way, just count each blob as a whole and not worry about the few calories shorter it would be after the excess is cut away.

Beatlegirl66 · May 2012

My issues happen when I am eating a homemade meal at someone's home that isn't mine. I don't want to ask "what exactly is in this and how much did you use of it?" for each scoop of something that I tried. I just sort of guess and take very small portions since I am unsure.

Hericksen · May 2012

You can put a chopstick or wooden spoon handle on either side of the dough, underneath the rolling pin. This keeps the dough at a uniform width because you can't roll it any thinner than however much the chopstick sticks up from the counter. (I hope that makes sense!)

Then use the trick of subtracting the weight of the unused scraps from the weight of the entire batch of dough. You should get really close this way.

That is a really good idea too!

msudaisy28 · May 2012

Personally, I wouldn't get too worked up about it - all calories are estimates anyway (both eaten and burned). When I make something like this (recently I made drop biscuits - no way those were all exactly the same amount of calories) I just count all of the calories for all of the ingredients and eyeball the portions to get them as uniform as possible. When it comes time to eat them I try to pick the smaller one(s) so that I'm overestimating rather than underestimating calories in.

Figuring out calories in homamade things...

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