Delicious, 'Enlightened' Holiday Baking Tips!

Who doesn't look forward to the tastes of traditional holiday desserts and baked goods? Did you know that your favorite cookies, pastries, festive breads and cakes can be just as yummy, but better for you if you understand how fats and sugar affect baked goods?

Baking is All About Chemistry

Wheat flour contains proteins that form tough strands called gluten when mixed with liquid. Fats such as butter and oil (aka "shortening"), tenderize baked goods, giving them that lucious mouth feel by coating the pieces of flour so that the liquid ingredients will ‘shorten ’ the strings of gluten to allow a more tender structure.

Fruit purees are often used as fat substitutes, unsweetened applesauce being the most common. Applesauce doesn’t impart a lot of flavor and contains more pectin than other fruit purees, and helps to retain the moistness of baked goods. You may also use pumpkin, banana, or prune purees. Prune purees is wonderful in brownies as it brings out the flavor of the chocolate. For the prune puree, place some pitted prunes in a small saucepan with a little water, cover, cook until softened and puree.

Pumpkin is abundant this time of year and canned pumpkin is easy to buy and use. But, if you like to really bake 'from scratch', simply place a sugar pumpkin in the oven on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Let it cool, scrap out the seeds (and roast them later to snack on!) remove the skin, then puree in a blender or food processor.

Many recipes call for mixing fat and sugar together which mixes in air bubbles and then during the baking process, these air bubbles are part of what makes the baked goods rise.

Revising Your Recipes Step by Step

1. At first, eliminate only half the fat in a recipe, and the next time you make the recipe, try replacing even more fat, if desired. For example if you are making cookies that call for 1 cup of butter, replace with ½ cup butter and ½ cup applesauce.
2. Consider using flours like whole-wheat pastry flour, oat flour, oat bran, rolled oats, and cornmeal, which are all comparatively lower in gluten and better choices for low fat baking. These flours are higher in nutritional quality than processed and refined white flour.
3. Many fat-free and low-fat recipes contain additional sugar, which also affects 1/2 without compromising flavor or texture.
4. Stirring batter excessively develops gluten and toughens the texture of baked goods, so minimize mixing in many recipes.
   

Reduce Oven Temp, too!

Reduced-fat baked goods often bake more quickly than their high-fat counterparts so you should reduce oven temperatures by 25°F, and check the product for doneness a few minutes before the end of the usual baking time.

Of course, there is nothing as temptingly delicious as home-baked holiday treats! Now, you know how to adjust your favorite recipes and, to tell you the truth ... if you don't tell, NO ONE will know by the taste and appearance! You can serve what looks like the traditional "full wicked complement" and feel good that you served something a little more healthy to the people you love!