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"Kate, How would you change this recipe?"

9/2/2014

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Asked a friend of mine recently. I am a notorious recipe modifier. I'm usually trying to make my food a bit healthier by increasing veggies or decreasing sugar, or I am improvising  because I don't have the actual ingredients. Even when I try to follow a recipe, I often end up changing it just a little. 

So, my friend sends me the Pumpkin Bars recipe. The name of the recipe sounded like something I would like. But when I looked more closely at the recipe, I was very disheartened by the amount of oil, sugar and butter! I think it had more sugar than a usual chocolate cake. Point 1: don't be fooled by names. Muffins are a good example of this, often very high in calories but people think they are the healthier option.  

Point 2: I tend to modify every day recipes. On special occasions, we do splurge (except when I can't bring myself to put in so much sugar in a recipe). If the Pumpkin Bars were a birthday cake, I'd say reduce the sugar just a tad and enjoy a small piece but if they were chosen as a healthier afternoon tea or lunch box treat then I would suggest a few changes... 

Today I will share with you tips for healthier baking. Next week I'll focus on recipe modifications for main meals. 

Kate's tips for recipe changes in baking: 

1. Reduce the sugar
  • You can usually halve the amount of sugar in a recipe without anyone noticing. I go a step further and try to use 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar (or whatever sugar equivalent you are using, such as honey) per batch or loaf (batch to serve 12 or more)
  • Use dried or pureed fruit in place of some of the sugar. Try unsweetened apple sauce or apple puree, an over ripe banana or using dates in recipes  

2. Use a healthy fat
  • Use low fat dairy in place of full fat dairy
  • Use vegetable based oils and spreads (i.e olive, canola, sunflower) in place of butter

3. Reduce the fat
  • Reduce some of the oil or butter in recipes and replace with low fat milk, yoghurt or apple sauce. I reduce to about 1/3 cup oil per batch as a guide

4. Increase the fibre 
  • Use half wholemeal flour and half white flour 

5. Add more colour
  • Increase the amount of fruit in baking (i.e more bananas in banana bread).  
  • Try adding an extra carrot to the amount the recipe states for carrot muffins or carrot cake 

Here is how I changed the Pumpkin Bars recipe and turned it into something that would go into my kids lunch boxes. I think it is lucky that I never tried the original version as I did make quite a lot of changes: 

Original re
4 large eggs 
250ml sunflower oil --------- 1/3 cup sunflower oil and 2/3 cup lite milk
360g brown sugar -------------1/3 cup brown sugar (about 60 grams)
450g can of pumpkin puree -------1/2 a pumpkin pureed (this was about the same)
340g plain flour --------------- 1.5 cups plain flour, 1 cup wholemeal plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon salt --------------- omitted salt 

Instead of making the icing , I sprinkled some pumpkin seeds on the loaf before baking. The icing had 120g full-fat cream cheese, 50g butter, 200g icing sugar and 30g desiccated coconut. I could have used low fat cream cheese and reduced the sugar.  But I am usually to lazy to make icing unless it is a birthday. 

The recipe was not very sweet but my kids still liked it. Use 1/2 cup sugar if you prefer. 

To make, I cooked and mashed pumpkin (you could use leftovers). It is quite a lot of pumpkin. I used half a small Jap pumpkin.  Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Combine eggs, oil, milk, sugar and pumpkin and beat with electric beaters until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix well. 

Grease and line a slice tray or loaf tin with baking paper. Cooking time depends on tray used. The original recipe says 30 minutes (for a slice tray) but I used a loaf tin so it took about 50-60 minutes. Even once cooked it is a very moist cake. 

My pumpkin loaf has now been cut into slices and frozen. 

Are you a recipe follower or recipe changer? Do you have any recipe tips to share? 


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How much should I snack?

2/2/2014

1 Comment

 
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I recently made a conscious decision to reduce my own and my kids snacks.  I didn't do it because there is something wrong with snacking, I did it because I think that we were eating too much between meals (especially in the afternoon) and weren't hungry at meal times, especially dinnertime.   This becomes a problem when dinner is usually one of the most nutritious meals of the day and it usually contains the most veggies. 

Research shows that there is no perfect formula. No one size fits all when it comes to eating. Some people thrive on three meals a day whilst others prefer meals and a couple of snacks. What works for you? 

Here are a few things to remember about snacking: 

See snacks as an opportunity. For our family, fruit and dairy are not usually a key feature of our main meals so we focus our snacks on these. Everyone can do with eating more veggies so a veggie based snack is great too. My kids love their grains (bread, pasta and crackers especially) and these form the basis of most of our main meals. Whilst sometimes I make them a baked healthy treat I do use snacks to balance out their eating and tend to have grains as snacks. Base your snacks around the five food groups (wholegrains, veggies, fruit, meat/fish/eggs/beans/nuts meat and dairy).  Think of which food group you could eat more of and take the opportunity to include them in your snacks. 

Watch the size and timing of snacks.  Be careful to keep snacks, snack size. Watch the timing of your snacks so that they are not too close to meal times. If it is almost meal time, is it ok to wait till the next meal. If it is between meals and you feel hungry then enjoy a healthy snack. When it comes to our kids, we want them to come to the table hungry and ready to eat, especially at dinner time which can often be a tricky time. 

Remember: enjoying meals and snacks is not the same as grazing. We want our bodies to experience both hunger and fullness. This is important for kids too. Constantly eating doesn't allow the body to go through the hunger fullness cycle which is important for mindful eating.  

The changes I have made to my family recently: smaller snacks and I aim for not snacking within 1.5-2 hours of meal times. If we are having an early dinner or had a late breakfast, we skip the snack, especially when I know meal time is just around the corner. If my kids are famished, I do let them snack on the veggies I am cutting up for dinner (I figure it's dinner anyway).

Do you have a healthy snack to share? A small smoothie, veggie sticks, fruit and plain yoghurt mixed with frozen berries are common in our house.  

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    Hi, I'm Kate. A dietitian and mother of four. I'll share my nutrition and cooking adventures here.  

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