Today’s world is full of food substitutions. Everywhere you look, you find dozens of healthy options for baking substitutes. Grocery stores and bakeries alike are now even offering gluten-free and vegan options for baked goods. Everyone is struggling to eat right and eat healthy. But when a recipe calls for a pound of butter and overflowing cups of granulated sugar, it is hard to resist baking up that delicious batch of sweet brownies and rather, aim healthier.
Here are some easy and healthy baking options that you can substitute in your baked goods, whether your looking for a full-flavored buttery taste without the fat or a sweet aftertaste without so much sugar.
1. Substituting butter or margarine: Butter is a pure fat. It’s use in baked goods to create the light and fluffy texture of our cakes and brownies. So if you’re looking to slim down and stay healthy, but you’re still craving that piece of cake, substitute butter for a different kind of fat – oil. Canola oil works best, but you can also try almond oil or walnut oil. These oils are still fatty, but so much less fatty that two sticks of butter.
2. Substituting fat: Since fat produces much of the flavor in baked goods, cutting down the amount of fat while still creating the same amount of flavor can be tricky. Try cutting down on some of the fat in your dish and replacing it with one of these substitutes – unsweetened applesauce, mashed bananas, canned pumpkin puree, or peanut butter.
3. Substituting white flour: Most recipes for baked goods call for all-purpose white flour. This particular flour is highly processed and is not the healthiest option for baked goods. Use whole wheat pastry flour instead. It will give you the exact same consistency and taste as white flour. Other substitutes include oat flour or soy flour.
4. Substituting sugar: Granulated sugar is certainly a staple product in any professional baker’s kitchen. But sometimes the amount of sugar needed in a recipe is way over the top. One option is to simply reduce the amount of sugar you add to your dish by about half – you will hardly notice the difference. But there are also hundreds of sweeteners on the market these days that you can add to keep the sugary taste to your baked goods. Try substituting granulated sugar for stevia, maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar.
I guarantee that all of these substitutes will not drastically effect the taste, consistency, or texture of your baked goods. When substituting sugar for sweeteners, your cakes will taste almost identical. A less fattening oil will not change the consistency of your buttery cookies or biscuits. And the texture of any baked goods that you create will not be altered due to the change in the type of flour that you use.
Hope these suggestions for healthy baking substitutes are helpful!
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Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!