By adjusting the ingredients you use in cooking and baking, you can incorporate treats into your healthy eating lifestyle.
Butter
- Swap butter or hard margarines for sunflower or olive oil based margarines instead. For example; Golden olive, Flora or Low Low Gold are suitable for baking.
Milk
- Instead of whole milk, use low fat milk
Flour
- Use half wholemeal flour and half white flour in the recipe to increase fibre content
- Add a handful of oat flakes to further increase fibre content
Sugar
- Reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe to half
- Use sweeteners instead of sugar where possible, for example Splenda and Canderel
- Add spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg or flavourings such as vanilla and almond extract to enhance the sweetness.
Cream
- Go for custard with desserts instead of cream. To make custard use low fat milk and sweetener instead of sugar
- Replace sour cream with low fat natural yoghurt
- Light or extra light cream cheese works perfectly in cheesecake recipes
Chocolate
- Substitute every ounce of cooking chocolate with 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
Nuts
- Reduce the quantity of nuts by half and toast them. By toasting the nuts it helps develop the flavour, so fewer nuts required!
Baking Time
- Reduced-fat baked goods tend to bake more quickly – so lower the oven temperature by 25° and/or check the product a few minutes before the end of the usual baking time
Success in lower-fat baking comes from trial and error, so don’t be afraid to experiment. Remember to limit portion size and frequency of treats!!