While I would agree that baking is a science for the most part, I also think there’s a little wiggle room to experiment with lower-fat versions of your favorite recipes.
Basically, you can replace any ingredient with its low-fat version and save up on a ton of fat and calories.
In most cases, the results will be just as delicious, I PROMISE. If you’re worried about your food tasting too bland (which it won’t) or fat-deficient, or whatever, then just substitute half the ingredient with its low-fat cousin, and the remaining half can be its fully potent fatness. You’ll still achieve a lower-fat product, and that’s already an improvement over doing nothing, right?
(Note: Any of these substitutions will work just as well when cooking. Actually, cooking is MUCH more forgiving when you want to play the ingredient mix-match game.)
| Instead Of | Use |
| 1 cup of butter (in baking only) | 1 cup smashed banana or applesauce |
| 1/4 cup butter + 3/4 cup smashed banana or applesauce | |
| 1 cup heavy cream (in recipes, not for whipping) | 1/2 cup whole milk + 1/2 cup lowfat cream 1 cup lowfat cream
1 cup half and half Or any combination thereof! Cream is easy. |
| 8 ounces of cream cheese | 8 ounces of low fat cream cheese or Neufatel cheese |
| 1 cup sour cream | 1 cup lowfat sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese + 2 tablespoons skim milk + 1 tbsp. lemon juice |
| I cup whole milk | 1 cup 2% milk or skim milk. Very substitute-able! |
| 1 egg | 2 egg whites |
Have a recipe that calls for ingredients not listed here? Not sure whether it’s a good idea to substitute shredded zucchini for butter? Shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to answer your questions! shadiah.sigala@gmail.com
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Great advice! Also – my friend brought over these “No Pudge Fudge” brownies made with pudding I think. They were DELICIOUS!