I once remarked, “I don’t have much of a sweet tooth; it’s more like a saber tooth!” It was true, for at the time the only dessert that interested me personally was chocolate ice cream. I have since succumbed to the pleasures of cakes, tarts, pies, muffins, cookies, you name it. It all started when I began baking at home and realized I could achieve the same decadent-tasting results with healthy ingredients. As an omnivore, I’m not concerned with whether or not my cupcakes are Vegan; what matters to me is how I feel after eating something and how I look, in that order. Baked goods prepared with butter, cream, oil, sugar and white flour do nothing for me, in any sense, and they don’t even taste as good to me as what I bake at home. The tongue is an amazing group of muscles which, like all the other muscles in our body, can be trained and conditioned. Forget what you grew up thinking—that sweets have to be bad for you to be good and that anything healthy doesn’t taste as good—because it’s simply not true.
As a foodie and blogger, it hasn’t escaped my attention that the highest rated and most printed recipes out there tend to be desserts or sweet baked goods in general. Cupcakes, for example, are all the rage now, especially Vegan cupcakes. And yet it’s dangerous to believe that vegetarian ingredients are always better for you than animal products. A cupcake made with coconut oil, for example, is no better for you than one made with butter due to its high levels of saturated fat. It’s always better to think for yourself than to follow trends. To that end, I provide a list here of ingredients I rely on for healthy baking that explains why I use them with confidence.
Smart Balance Original Buttery Spread—A patented blend of oils developed by researchers at Brandeis University clinically proven to support healthy cholesterol levels that are already within the normal range. Smart Balance is made with a unique blend of natural oils that improves the ratio of “good” HDL to “bad” LDL. No hydrogenated oils, no partially hydrogenated oils, 0 grams trans fat, no palm kernel oil, excellent source of Omega-3, Vitamins D (50% daily value), B-6 and B-12, Gluten-Free and Gelatin-Free. And it also tastes great. I use it for all my cooking needs, not just for baking. The Smart Balance Website is worth visiting.
Stevia Plant & Truvia—Truvia is a stevia-based sugar substitute made of rebiana, erythritol, and natural flavors. Rebiana is the trade name for high-purity rebaudioside A, a Steviol glycoside 200 times sweeter than sugar and the primary source of sweetness in the Truvia sweetener brand. In other words, a little goes a long long way. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol (or polyol) that has been approved for use as a food additive in the United States and throughout much of the world. It occurs naturally in some fruits and fermented foods, is 60–70% as sweet as table sugar and yet is almost non-caloric, does not affect blood sugar, does not cause tooth decay, and is partially absorbed by the body, excreted in urine and feces. It’s also less likely to cause gastric side-effects than other sugar alcohols.
Now purists will, rightly, argue that we should be wary of the as yet to be disclosed chemically-enhanced refining process that goes into making Truvia (a product, after all, of the Coca Cola Company) but I’ve been consuming Truvia for years and, frankly, I feel great. You can grow your own Stevia plants and make your own all-natural sweetener. It couldn’t be easier. In the summer, I grow stevia plants in my herb bed and then, come fall, pull them out of the ground, hang them upside down in my sun room, and use the dried leaves (crushed to a fine powder) to sweeten my coffe.
Sunsweet Lighter Bake—A fruit puree made from water, dried plums and dried apples that replaces butter, margarine, oil or shortening. You only need half the amount of Sunsweet than the amount of oil called for in the recipe. Lighter Bake is naturally 100% fat, cholesterol and sodium free, totally heart healthy. And just as important, it really works; baked goods are just as moist as if you made them with all that other bad-for-you-stuff. Experience has taught me that it works better than just using apple sauce.
Egg Beaters—All Natural egg whites that are fat and cholesterol free, with half the calories of whole eggs but all the vitamins and minerals. I love Egg Beaters for baking, but I never use them for omelets or scrambled eggs or any other recipe where the egg is the star. You can, of course, bake using shelled egg whites, but the texture is better using Egg Beaters and there’s nothing in them that’s bad for you:
Egg Whites and less than 1%: Natural Flavor, Color (Includes Beta Carotene), Spices, Salt, Onion Powder, Vegetable Gums (Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum), Maltodextrin. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Sulfate, Iron (Ferric Phosphate), Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol Acetate), Zinc Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (Thiamine Mononitrate), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin D3
The most recent studies indicate that, for most people, blood cholesterol levels are influenced not so much by dietary cholesterol as by saturated fats and trans fats. Nevertheless, an egg packs 200 mg of cholesterol, so it’s probably best not to have more than one egg a day, or two eggs every other day, so if you love baking, Egg Beaters is the way to go.
White Whole Wheat Flour—As the Google dictionary informs us, “White Whole-Wheat flour is milled from a variety of hard winter-white wheat. It has the same nutritional value as whole-wheat flour but is milder, sweeter and lighter in color than flour made from hard red wheat.” What this means is you can bake cakes, pie crusts, muffins, etc. that are high in fiber and they’ll taste like you used white all-purpose flour. It’s a no-brainer.