Those who are trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy diet often try to consume less fat, particularly animal fats. Some may believe that this means avoiding pastries, but this isn’t always the case. Substituting healthier, moisture-rich ingredients for oils, butter, and fatty dairy products, as well as reducing or eliminating any nuts called for in the recipe, are all low-fat baking tips.
Pastries get their moist, rich flavor from oils, butter, whole milk, heavy cream, and cream cheese. They usually add a lot of fat to a recipe as well. Applesauce can be used instead of oil, low-fat Greek yogurt can be used instead of butter, and skim milk can be used instead of whole milk. Whole milk and full-fat cream cheese can be substituted with low-fat evaporated milk and reduced-fat cream cheese. Egg whites can be used to cut out the fatty yolks for those who don’t eat eggs.
In most cases, there is no need to use more or less of a substitute ingredient than the recipe specifies. For example, if 1 cup (236 ml) of oil is replaced with applesauce, only that amount of applesauce is required. The same goes for replacing butter with Greek yogurt, though some cooks may prefer to strain the yogurt over a bowl before adding it to the pastry batter. When you drain yogurt, it becomes thicker and denser, almost like butter. During the low-fat baking process, this helps the pastry stay moist, dense, and rich.
In low-fat baking, mashed bananas and fruit purees of all kinds can be used to replace oils and butter, especially when making fruit-based pastries. Banana bread usually calls for several mashed bananas. To make this bread low-fat, simply omit the oil or butter and replace it with an additional medium banana mashed for each cup (236 ml) of fat. For example, if a recipe calls for 2 cups (472 ml) of butter, the cook should typically mash two medium bananas in its place.
Other fruit-based pastries follow the same general principle. Pureed peaches could be used in place of butter and oil in peach muffins, for example. Some cooks buy fruit-flavored baby food specifically for use in low-fat baking. Baby food typically contains few additives and almost no artificial coloring, making it a versatile, low-fat baking ingredient. Those who bake a lot might want to stock up on their favorite baby food flavors.
Reduce the amount of nuts in a recipe to cut down on fat. Although nuts are high in protein and other beneficial nutrients, they are also high in fat. When you cut the amount of nuts in a recipe in half, you also cut the amount of fat the nuts contribute. Some cooks may prefer to leave nuts out of low-fat baking recipes entirely. A third option is to replace very fatty nuts like cashews and walnuts with leaner nuts like almonds and pistachios.