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!