My Healthy Baking Tips!

I love healthy baking (as you can probably tell from my recipes!), as it means that you can have your cake and eat it too, MINUS any guilty feelings!! Yes the odd triple chocolate cake won’t harm you, but I like to have delicious tasting treats everyday.. and I want to eat them knowing that I’m both nourishing my body and NOT breaking the calorie/fat/sugar allowance!

Because of this, I’ve put together my top healthy baking tips, along with a recipe to show how I’ve used it! So.. to see how to either reduce the calorie content or boost the nutritional goodness of your baking, carry on reading 🙂

1) Add Fruit. Both dried and fresh fruit is packed with antioxidants, nutrients and fibre and they go nicely in most baking recipes. Try dried cranberries or cherries in cookies, and raisins or fresh blueberries in muffins or a cake. There’s no reason why ‘treat’ foods can’t count towards your ‘5 a day’ too!

• Check out my Oat & Blueberry Muffin recipe for inspiration!

2) Substitute the Fat. Replace half the amount of fat (e.g. butter/oil) used with either mashed bananas or apple puree (I buy apple puree from the baby food aisle as it’s no-added-sugar!). The calories and fat are instantly reduced!

• Check out my Healthy Carrot Cake Recipe for inspiration!

3) Cut the Sugar. Calorie-free sweeteners such as Stevia are a great replacement for sugar (when used for sweetness) in baking – just check the packet of your chosen sweetener to see if they are suitable for heating (as some aren’t!) and experiment!

When recipes use sugar for bulk, use something like Xylitol which can be used exactly like sugar except it doesn’t rot your teeth and has less calories and carbs than sugar. Read my blog post on Sugar & Sweeteners for more detail!

• Check out my Chocolate Black Bean Cookie recipe for inspiration!

4) Go easy on the Chocolate! Adding bars of melted chocolate to your baking can seriously increase the fat and calorie content, so instead why not use mini chocolate chips – stir them into your baking, without melting first or simply sprinkle on top. This way you have chocolatey tastes with every bite just without as many calories! Choose dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) for less added fat and sugar and more healthy antioxidants.

• Check out my No Bake Truffles for inspiration!

I really hope these tips inspire you to make your baking that little bit healthier!

I also love making my own flour by simply blending oats (as used in my Greek Pancake recipe!), as well as experimenting with new foods.. I’m currently developing recipes with PB2 and discovered that you can make an AMAZING frosting from:

• 1/4 cup (45g) fat-free Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp PB2
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp stevia.. amazing!!! *watch this space for more*  🙂

Do let me know if you have any more tips!

P.S Make sure to check out my Top Healthy Kitchen Gadgets post for my healthy baking tool essentials as well!