Saturday 16 June 2007

Low(er) Fat Baking using Yogurt

I love cakes and muffins, especially for morning and afternoon tea. I usually have a fruit for my mid-morning break, but I like the idea that I have a yummy reward waiting for me after working hard all afternoon. This is also an important strategy because we tend to eat dinner quite late, so having a pre-planned (preferably ealthy) snack in the late afternoon prevents me from snacking on unhealthy stuff in the evening while I prepare dinner.

In recent months, I have been baking with yogurt as a strategy to lower the fat in cakes and muffins. While I love the taste and texture of cakes made with butter, these yogurt cake and muffins still won me over because they taste good in a different way - they are always moist, and the flavours of the ingredients (e.g. fruit) immediately satiates the palate. Quikong also likes them a lot and he doesn't usually like my low-fat baking. Iusually freeze half of what I bake for later snacking or a quick breakfast on the run.

The two tried and tested recipes I want to share are slight adaptations from recipes found 0n two food blogs:


Yogurt Muffins - I found this wonderful recipe from Anne. I've made this a dozen times now. I usually use extra large muffins pans (makes about 9 muffins). I have four varieties of the original recipe that I like a lot:

(1) Banana Maple Muffins (original recipe). My adaptation - I used raw sugar instead, mashed 4 bananas, and sometimes add chopped walnuts.






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(2) Apple and Rhubarb Muffins. I omited the bananas, added a chopped granny smith apple and used rhubarb compote as a filling. (see Haalo's stewed rhubarb recipe but use only 2 tbspn of water).






(3) Banana Rhubarb Swirl mini cakes. I used the original recipe but swirled some rhubard compote through the cake.






(4) Wholemeal Banana Choc Muffin. I replaced half the flour with wholemeal flour, used half brown sugar, half raw sugar, mashed 4 bananas and added a handful of chopped bittersweet choc.







Yogurt Cake:

French Style Orange and Poppy Seed Yogurt Cake
- I used Mary's version of Molly's recipe. I added a pinch of salt and used 2 tbspn of poppy seeds. I also pierced the surface of the baked cake with a fork before pouring the lemon syrup over (done while cake is still warm).

Thanks Anne and Mary for posting the original recipes!

14 comments:

Alpineberry Mary said...

I'm glad you were able to adapt the recipe for a loaf pan. For even less fat, I have also made the cake with nonfat yogurt too. Not as moist but still yummy.

Anh said...

I love cakes with yoghurt. They tend to stay moist... You have done quite a bit of variations there. Thanks for sharing with us!

Anonymous said...

Please don't tell me you baked ALL that today?? :-)

Janet said...

Wow - first of all I'm impressed... five recipes in one post... you've been busy. Nothing I love better than a muffin or quick bread with a cup of coffee mid-morning. I usually don't indulge, but I've never tried baking with yoghurt....I think the apple rhubarb ones would be my fave!

Patricia Scarpin said...

Nora, you are a mean, mean woman - all these delicious baked goods and I have none here to indulge myself!!! :D

Everything looks so good, my friend - I too love baking with yogurt. Such great results.

My little sister bakes muffins every week now and I'll translate the recipes for her - tks so much for sharing!

Nora B. said...

Thanks Anh, Em & Janet! Although I love my oven very much, for the record, I better let you all know that I did not bake all that in a day ;-) It was over several weeks of experimenting (& tasting!). I wanted to wait till I had e few variations before I wrote about this topic. I am sure that you can come up with many more variations.

Mary - I actually used 1% fat yogurt for all the recipes and I was very happy with the result. i used a loaf pan because it was easier to slice & freeze. Thanks again for the recipe!

Patricia - I wonder what your sister will think of the low-fat recipes. p/s: if you lived any closer, i would have sent some muffins over to you :-)

Truffle said...

You have me drooling and thankfully for once my waistline is not worried. Wonderful adaptations and beautiful photos. You are quite the baker!!!

Eva said...

Nora, don't you feel the urge to come over at my place with some of those goodies...;-) I certainly feel it!

Anonymous said...

Look at all that baking! I love substituting yogurt in baking and applesauce as a sub as well.

Kelly-Jane said...

They all sound and look great. I especially like the combo in Banana Rhubarb Swirl mini cakes. Rhubarb is great in muffins, and it's lovely to see something yummy and different.

Michelle Bilodeau said...

Here I am unable to sleep at 4 in the morning, and there's old bananas and soon-to-expire yoghurt in the kitchen... what a lovely coincidence to run across your page! i just made the banana muffins & they are wonderful- thank you for the recipe!

Nora B. said...

Hi Betsy, I'm glad that you enjoyed the muffins. I've made this recips so many times that I've lost count. Now it's my turn to be awake at 4am (actually since 3am!!). sigh....

Anonymous said...

I will be trying your banana maple muffins this week.
Have a wonderful end of the weekend! :)
Margot

Coffee and Vanilla said...

This orange and poppy seed cake looks amazing!

Margot