Do you love baking? Do you love eating baked goods? If you answered no to the first question, that’s fine, baking can be pretty horrible. If you answered no to the second question, then be gone (from this article at least)! Now that the crazy people are gone… My love of baked goods has always been consistent. On the other hand, I have a love -hate relationship with baking. Currently I’m in a love-it phase, and I’ll tell you why. Recently I have become obsessed with healthy baking. That’s right… HEALTHY! Through plenty of procrastination, googling, blog reading, cookbook searching and of course experimentation, I’ve picked up a few tricks that preserves the delectable taste but removes the guilt. Each post I will be sharing is something I’ve discovered. Day 1 is baking surprises… and believe me, when I first saw some of these funky ingredients I was just as surprised as you’ll probably be!
Beans: Beans are great for protein, digestion and disease prevention. They also are great fat replacement for baking. I’ve used black beans in brownies and garbanzo beans in Blondies and they still had that delicious gooey taste that butter usually provides. Don’t believe me? Just Google black bean brownie recipes or garbanzo bean blondies. Disclaimer: I personally like using garbanzo beans based recipes better than the black beans ones, I think the taste is a bit more subtle. Check out a recipe here: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/05/31/deep-dish-cookie-pie/
Tofu: Talk about another high protein addition. Tofu is great because it takes on the flavor of what you mix it with. It is excellent as the “cream” in puddings or milkshakes. If you blend it really well with your other ingredients you won’t even realize it’s in there. My personal favorite is using tofu to make chocolate mousse. But you may thinking “but tofu has such a weird texture!” Well yes, but blended with the right ingredients that texture adds to the recipe and makes it perfectly fluffy, light and delightful for puddings, pies, and shakes. Here’s my favorite tofu based recipe: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/09/06/the-ultimate-chocolate-fudge-pie/
Banana ice cream: For you lactose-free people out there this is the most amazing trick ever because its delicious and requires no ice-cream maker! Cut up then freeze ripe bananas for 24 hours. Then blend it up, mix in anything else you want and you get dairy free ice cream. The frozen banana really has that creamy flavor of dairy based ice cream and the texture when blended is just like soft serve. What’s especially great about this recipe is that there is no need to add sugar – bananas already have a naturally sweet taste when ripe. If you need “add-in” suggestions go here (and scroll to banana based ice-cream) http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/amazing-vegan-ice-cream-recipes