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How to Substitute Low-Fat Ingredients in Baking

Posted by Caley on February 24th, 2009 at 09:55am

Being on a diet doesn’t mean you have to completely deprive yourself of tasty baked goods. If you keep an eye on overall caloric intake, you can make healthier baked goods which will still satisfy those sweet and comforting cravings. Just keep an eye on baking times since healthier items often bake more quickly. Here’s how to substitute healthier ingredients in your baking:

Eggs- Substitute two egg whites for every egg called for in the recipe. This substitution does tend to make the baked less tender, so you can add an additional teaspoon of oil or applesauce (see below) for every egg to counter this if you like. You can also substitute 1/4 egg substitute (such as egg beaters) for each egg. Keep in mind egg substitutes do not work for many recipes and cannot be whipped.
Oil- Substitute equal amounts of applesauce for oil in a recipe. This is very handy! If you’d still like some oil, try using half oil/half applesauce. The applesauce really won’t affect the flavor when used in full though!
Baking chocolate- Baking chocolate is usually full of butter to make it melt more easily. Cocoa is much healthier. Replace 1 oz. of baking chocolate with 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder and a tablespoon of heart-healthy oil.
Cream cheese- Replace fattening cream cheese with low fat ricotta and yogurt in cheesecake recipes.
Sour cream- Replace with equal amounts of yogurt. Plain yogurt is a handy thing to keep around when baking!
Pumpkin- Skip the oil and eggs completely and mix a can of pumpkin puree (15 oz.) with a box of chocolate cake mix (devil’s food would be perfect). Simply pour into a pan and bake like brownies.

Cutting out chocolate completely does not make sense for those chocoholics of us (guilty!), especially since dark chocolate is full of antioxidants and other health benefits. With these substitutions, you can whip up a pan of dark chocolate brownies made with applesauce. Yum! For ala mode, try a small scoop of natural frozen yogurt instead of ice cream.