While everyone loves baked goods, those prepared with ingredients like sugar and butter aren’t necessarily great additions to a person’s diet. While baked goods may never rival vegetables in nutritional value, there are ways to make them a little healthier.
- Replace sugar with a fig puree. Figs are nutrient-rich and a significant source of calcium, potassium, and iron. WebMD notes that figs are also an excellent source of fiber. Soaking eight ounces of figs in water can soften them before they’re pureed with between 1⁄4 to 1⁄3 cup of water. The resulting puree is a great sugar substitute.
- Make it a “date” night. Much like figs, dates can be pureed to serve as a sugar substitute. One cup of pureed pitted dates with 1⁄2 to 1 cup of water can replace about half of the sugar a recipe requires.
- Replace butter with avocados. Avocadoes are a great replacement for butter at a 1:1 ratio when baking. If a recipe calls for 1 cup of butter, you can replace it with 1 cup of pureed avocados. Since avocados have more water than butter, you may want to reduce the oven temperature 25% and bake your creation a little longer.
- Replace white flour with whole wheat flour. White flour is often the go-to for bakers. But white flour is processed, which removes the bran and germ of the grain, stripping the flour of much of its nutritional value. Whole wheat flour is not processed, so it retains its nutritional value. Some bakers prefer to use a mix of whole-wheat and white flour to preserve the flavors they’ve grown accustomed to.
Check out a great recipe for Secret Ingredient Chocolate Pudding on page 43!
