Like any creative pursuit, baking is a form of self-expression that helps relieve stress. Also regularly engaging in small acts of creativity can help you feel more relaxed, happier, and enthusiastic about life. So If you love baking and also want to maintain a healthy style of baking, then this post was made for you.
Give Your Bread Baking a Healthy Boost with These 8 Tips
1. Make your own bread to use less salt
Bread is probably the bakery product we eat the most, which means that, while it might not be the saltiest food you can think of, it can make a significant contribution to the salt content of our diet.
Using wholegrain flour instead of white flour will help to increase the fibre content and make your baking more satisfying to eat
In recent years, many manufacturers have reduced the amount of salt that they add to bread, but it can still vary widely. A recent survey by Consensus Action on Salt and Health found that one in four loaves contained more salt in two slices than a packet of crisps. This means we all need to check food labels carefully but, better still, why not make your own bread so that you have complete control?
2. Try different flours and flavorings
Making your own bread also gives you flexibility in terms of the type of flour you use. Wholegrain flour is a healthier choice than white, but it doesn’t have to be just wheat – you could try spelt, barley or oat, either on their own or mixed. Add some seeds or herbs to give an interesting crunch and flavour.
3. Adding Spices
Adding warm spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, or ginger to your baked goods is an excellent way to add loads of flavor and sweetness without relying on added sugar or oil. Exciting mixtures of cinnamon in pancakes, nutmeg into muffins, or cocoa powder into the cookie dough and others can make your baking experiences healthier.
4. Bake with unsaturated fat
Cakes should really be an ‘every now and then’ food. However, with a few tweaks to the ingredients and toppings, baking your own can be better for you than buying them.
Using an unsaturated spread instead of butter has more benefits than simply reducing the amount of saturated fat: it actually gives a lighter texture, especially if you’re making an all-in-one sponge cake. You can just swap spreads for butter in most recipes without making any other changes. Just make sure the spread you use is suitable for baking.
5. Add healthier ingredients to your baking
As with bread, using wholegrain flour instead of white flour will help to increase the fibre content and make your baking feel more substantial and filling. The flavor will be slightly different – some people say it tastes a bit nutty. If you want a more subtle flavour, you can try using half wholegrain and half white flour.
Using fruit and vegetables will also add fibre and sweetness. There might not be enough in a portion to count as one of your 5-a-day, but it’s a nutritious way to help keep your cakes and scones moist. And by using sweet vegetables such as carrots, beetroots, or fruit such as apples, berries or pineapples, you won’t need to add so much sugar.
6. Healthier icings
Use a drizzle of glacé (water) icing rather than butter icing for cake toppings. Or, a light sprinkle of icing sugar may be all you need to give your bake the final touch. Try cutting out stencils from greaseproof paper and sifting your icing sugar over it for a professional-looking finish.
7. Choose the right pastry…
Taking scones out of the oven Pastry isn’t known for being a heart-healthy choice but there’s a wide variation in the amount and type of fat used to make different types. About a third of puff and short crust pastry is fat, and if it’s made with butter or palm oil, it contains more saturated fat than if it’s made with unsaturated fats such as sunflower spread.
8. Sweeten Naturally
One of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of sugar needed to sweeten a recipe is by using ripe fruit. Whether it’s mashing ripe bananas into bread batter, folding sweet blueberries into muffin batter or adding strawberries into a quick pancake batter, using ripe fruit is a great way to lower the amount of sugar needed in a recipe. When baking, you can add zesting oranges or lemons to the batter. Bursting with aroma from the natural oils, this adds no additional calories to the baked good but results in tons of added flavor.
