1. Skip the oil and replace it with pureed fruit or vegetables. Depending on the recipe, you can replace oil with applesauce, a can of crushed fruit (I love using crushed pineapple), mashed banana and even pureed vegetables. Sweet potatoes, zucchini and carrots all work great for keeping baked good moist and the taste is so mild, for those who don't love vegetables, they won't even know it's there!
2. Skip the whole milk and substitute with almond milk, rice milk or even hemp milk. There are so many milk alternatives that are available, try them out! If you are loyal to regular milk, use non-fat instead to trim back fat and calories. You will be surprised that you can't even tell the difference.
3. Skip white flour and use anything else! Like milk, there are so many different types of flours on the market, explore and test out something new. Whole wheat flour is an easy substitute, but you could also pick from buckwheat, teff flour, brown rice flour, corn flour, chapati flour, cassava flour, coconut flour, the list goes on and on.
4. Grease the pan with cooking spray and skip the butter. This is a no brainer, but often times we think it's better to be safe than sorry and just use butter. To be honest, I have never had a time where I substituted cooking spray for butter and ended up disappointed.
5. Sugar, sugar, sugar! You definitely need it but the type you use can be substituted easily. I don't personally like to use sugar substitutes such as Splenda or Stevia in baking as it leaves an aftertaste, but there are so many other options. There is turbinado sugar, date sugar, Sucanat, honey, agave, maple syrup, and even molasses. Each have a unique flavor so it is fun to try different sweeteners with different recipes to produce slightly different variations of your recipe.
This New Year, try one or all the substitutes for healthier baking, but remember to keep on baking!
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