Baked goods with carefully chosen ingredients can fit everyone’s good nutrition plan if you keep an open mind.
Baking Best Practices
There are a few best practices to rely on when you want to bake a healthy loaf of bread, a dozen muffins or a batch of cookies. Taking time to work these out will give you a perfect starting point for better nutrition. Why? Because you’ll have new items for your grocery list and other items you may take off your grocery list or buy less often. It’s always smart to plan ahead.
Here are my favorite best practices:
- Keep it simple
- Make substitutions
- Be open-minded
Keep it simple: First of all, take a simple approach which might seem old-fashioned but there’s nothing wrong with that. Simple normally means unprocessed and that refers mostly to the grain(s) being used in your baked goods. Whole grains are less processed, meaning you get just the grain that’s been harvested, cleaned up, ground up, and put in a retail package. Whole grains are more nutrient-rich than the same grain that’s been processed, meaning you get more fiber, vitamins, and minerals in every bite. These rich nutrients vary depending on the grain so read more here for the details from a reliable source. Examples of whole grains are whole wheat, buckwheat, oats, quinoa, barley, millet, sorghum, spelt, brown rice, wild rice, and more.
Make substitutions: Next, take time to substitute more nutritious ingredients for the less nutritious ones in your baked goods recipe. Here are 3 that can be used in just about every case:
- White flour option#1- sub 1/2 whole wheat flour plus 1/2 white flour
- White flour option #2- sub 1/2 oat flour, made by grinding up oatmeal in a food processor plus 1/2 white flour
- Vegetable or Canola oil – sub entirely with quality extra virgin olive oil, EVOO
- Sugar – sub with 1/2 as much as the recipe calls for
Be Open-minded: Keeping an open mind will allow you to enter a new world of better nutrition as you bake in the kitchen. The finished recipes you create will look similar and taste similar to the ‘original’ recipes you’re used to, yet they will be healthier for you. Take a little time to adjust to the less sweet flavor of your quick bread and your cookies because you will adjust. Trust me on the EVOO substitution because it works. Re-write your recipe card or make a note on your smart phone recipe app. Open-mindedness allows creativity to coexist with quality nutrition.
Recipes to Try
If you are looking for a recipe to try then here you go:
Take Steps to Baking at Home with Quality Nutrition
- The first step to adopting better nutrition in your home baked goods is to make a firm decision to test a recipe or two.
- The second step is to make ingredient substitutions such as above into your test recipes.
- The third step is to follow your recipe, using the substitutions for whole grain flour, EVOO, and less sugar, and to taste the finished product. Sample it with your family, too, and get some honest feedback.