While the holidays bring smells of gingerbread and sugar cookies, pumpkin pie, and pecan brownies, baking is a year-round hobby for many, which is great for your friends and family, but not the best when you try. maintain a healthy lifestyle. . It’s easy to get sucked into the fun of baking and forget about the added sugar, butter, and calories that go along with it, but a few simple tips and tricks can help you keep the fun (and yum) going, while sticking to the healthy principles that go along with it. they support good health and well-being in general.

Quality matters

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

Chocolate

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

Sugar

The quality of your sugar is also important. Do you buy the same old bag of white granulated sugar? You can get the same sweetness and even a little more real flavor with raw cane sugar (which has not 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 yellow? Butter from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows is more yellow and creamier than the usual garden variety butter you see in the supermarket, and is richer in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin K2, and other good-for-food nutrients. you. The same goes for other dairy ingredients, like milk. Choosing organic grass-fed milk is much better for you than generic milk.

Eggs

Eggs, preferably organic, from pasture-raised hens provide the most nutritional benefit AND, being a product of a healthier, happier hen, they will do a better job of putting your ingredients together.

Tips and tricks

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

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