Take your baking to a healthier level

While the holidays bring smells of gingerbread and sugar cookies, pumpkin pie and pecan brownies, baking is a hobby for many year-round, which is great for your friends and family, but not the best when it’s about maintaining a healthy life. lifestyle It’s easy to get caught up in the fun of baking and forget about the sugar, butter, and extra calories that come with it, but a few simple tips and tricks can help you keep the fun (and the deliciousness) going while you stick with it. the wholesome principles that support good health and general well-being.

quality issues

Even if you didn’t make any changes to the ingredient type or amount in your recipe, simply making sure you’re buying high-quality products can improve the nutritional value of your baked goods.

Chocolate

For example, when you make brownies, do you buy Dutch-processed cocoa powder or unsweetened natural cocoa powder? If you buy processed, it is an ingredient that you can improve. Even if you buy natural cocoa powder, you can improve the ingredient by choosing raw cocoa powder (no, cocoa and cacao are not the same thing), which offers more nutritional benefits.

Sugar

The quality of your sugar also matters. Do you buy the same old bag of white granulated sugar? You can get the same sweetness and even a bit more real flavor with unrefined cane sugar (that hasn’t been bleached or over-processed).

Buttermilk

Now when it comes to butter, we have a question for you… What color is it? Is it almost white or is it yellow? Butter from pasture-raised, grass-fed cows is yellower and creamier than the usual garden-variety butter you see in the supermarket, and it’s higher in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin K2, and other good-for-you nutrients . The same goes for other dairy ingredients, like milk. Choosing organic milk from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows is much better for you than generic milk.

eggs

Eggs, preferably organic, from pasture-raised hens provide the greatest nutritional benefit AND, being the product of a healthier, happier hen, they’ll do a better job of bringing their ingredients together.

tips and tricks

Once you commit to buying high-quality ingredients, you can use these tips to make your baked goods a little healthier.

• Cut the fat to ¼. If the recipe calls for 1 cup of butter, use ¾ cup.
• Reduce sugar by ¼ to ½.
• Add finely grated beets to brownie or other chocolate recipes and reduce sugar by ¼.
• Make the cookies and brownies smaller.
• Substitute ¼ of the white flour in your recipe for buckwheat or almond flour.
• Keep the cake frosting thin. Add moisture to the inner layers by applying apple juice to the layers surrounding the frosting.
• Make a pie crust with meringue.