When it gets chilly outside, I often like to bake some wonderful sweet quick breads, like banana bread, or pumpkin bread. But this year I am afraid to make any because of the calories! If anyone has recipes for lowfat or whole grain or healthier versions of these breads, PLEASE would you post them here?? My kids are really missing my baking. Some breads I have liked to make in the past and would love healthier recipes for are:
I make mine more like little cake/muffins, in muffin tins, but they have the same flavor and all follow the same basic formula -
(for 4 servings)
1 cup white whole wheat flour (King Arthur brand is good)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch salt
1/3 cup Splenda (this is optional, but the breads benefit from some extra sweetness that this provides)
1 cup mashed/pureed fruit (examples - applesauce, canned pumpkin, mashed banana)
4 egg whites, whipped to stiff peaks
My favorite add-in for pumpkin and banana varieties:
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips.
Mix together the flour, splenda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Add in the fruit puree and stir until combined. Batter will be thick!
Beat the egg whites to very stiff peaks. Fold half of the egg whites into the batter at a time, folding gently to maintain volume. Gently fold in chocolate chips, if using.
Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. Distribute among 8 muffin cups. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Edited to Add: You could make a basic applesauce-based cake and fold in cranberries, blueberries, etc. instead of the chocolate chips.
Last edited by mandalinn82; 10-25-2007 at 06:03 PM.
Zucchini BreadTry Ingredients
2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup egg substitute
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Vegetable cooking spray
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place zucchini on several layers of paper towels, and cover with additional paper towel. Let stand 5 minutes, pressing down occasionally. Set aside.
Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (flour through baking powder) in a large bowl, and stir well; make a well in center of mixture. Combine zucchini, applesauce, egg substitute, oil, and vanilla; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Divide batter evenly between 2 (7 1/2 x 3-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire rack.
Nutritional Information
CALORIES 128(20% from fat); FAT 2.8g (sat 0.5g,mono 0.8g,poly 1.3g); PROTEIN 1.9g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 9mg; SODIUM 136mg; FIBER 0.5g; IRON 0.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 23.9g
Cooking Light, APRIL 1996
Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
Submitted by: Laurie Bennett
Rated: 5 out of 5 by 1325 members Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 50 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 5 Minutes
Yields: 24 servings
"Spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, this bread improves with age, so plan to make it a day ahead if possible."
INGREDIENTS:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out
Last edited by hellokitty81668; 10-25-2007 at 06:08 PM.
I substitute applesauce for the oil in almost everything. The texture is different, but the taste is good. Make sure you spray your pans with Pam as stuff will stick more.
I use 3 cups flour (half whole wheat), 1 1/2 cups sugar, two eggs + enough milk to make two cups, 3 tsp. baking powder and 1 tsp salt. Stir just until moist. Then add whatever fruit you want or top with cinnamon and brown sugar. Bakes up well in a 9 X 13 pan at 350 for about 35-40 minutes. I make it plain coffee cake, banana, blueberry, apple. Really good with a can of sugar free pie filling stirred in.
Some of the girls at school are hooked right now on pumpkin. They mix a small can of pumpkin with a cake mix - nothing else - and make muffins. I'm not a pumpkin fan, so I haven't tried it, but they say if you use chocolate cake mix you can't taste the pumpkin. The muffins are one or two points on weight watchers and much cheaper than the weight watcher's brand muffins I guess. I've never been a weight watcher person, so I can't vouch for all that.
Funny that I should see this thread this morning! Just this morning I was craving pumpkin bread and found three low-cal recipes that sound promising (though I have not tried them yet). Thanks for posting the others! I'm anxious to try them.
LOW CALORIE PUMPKIN MUFFINS
2/3 c. dry powdered milk
6 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. grated carrots
2 eggs
1 c. canned pumpkin
Sugar substitute to equal 12 tsp.
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. raisins
Combine dry ingredients. Mix other ingredients and fold into dry mixture. Mix well. Spray muffin tins with Pam.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Makes 4 servings of 3 muffins each or 2 servings of 6 muffins. The muffins are equal to the following exchanges: 1/2 fruit, 1/2 protein, 1/2 bread, 3/4 vegetable, 1/2 milk
Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup brown sugar - packed
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 cup pumpkin, canned
1/2 cup skim milk
2 egg whites - whipped
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup fat-free sour cream
Directions:
Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Prepare a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan with cooking spray and flour; set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, ginger, and cloves. In another mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, skim milk, egg whites, raisins, and sour cream. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients just until moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 60 minutes.
Makes 18 servings.
Nutritional information per serving:
Calories: 112, Fat: <1g, Calories from fat: 3%, Protein: 3g, Carbohydrate: 28g, Cholesterol: 1mg, Sodium: 116mg
Recipe ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon clove
1 cup egg beaters 99% egg substitute
16 ounces cranberry sauce, whole berry
15 ounces pumpkin, canned
1/3 cup apple sauce *
1 tablespoon orange peel — finely grated
2 tablespoons chopped nuts
Recipe directions:
Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, and stir in orange peel. Mix remaining ingredients in another bowl, then combine all ingredients. Pour into 2 loaf pans which have been sprayed with nonstick spray; sprinkle with nuts. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then remove from pans.
Serves: 32
- Nutrition Information Per Serving: Calories 105, Fat 1 g, protein 2, fiber 0.5, sodium 159, carbs 22, Weight Watcher points 2.
Last edited by RitzyFritz; 10-26-2007 at 07:28 AM.
The recipes over at the Cooking Light website are a treasure trove for stuff like this!
Also, my cousin (a naturopath) gave me this recipe for an egg replacer in baking. It really does work, and you can't tell the difference.
EGG REPLACER
1 cup flax seeds
4 cups water
Blend the flax seeds in your blender (I use a Vita Mix, which does a really kick a** job on grains - you could use a food processor in a pinch, but make sure the flax is ground well), then add the water and blend for a bit. That's it! Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, and use as needed.
To use in baking, 1/4 cup replaces 1 egg.
Another simple trick with a lot of sweet quick breads is to simply reduce the sugar. Anything that uses another ingredient high in natural sugar - pumpkin, bananas, etc. - doesn't typically suffer from doing this. Ever notice how banana breads are usually REALLY sweet? All that sugar in the bananas, plus 1 cup or more of added sugar (pretty common in a regular recipe) - it's just too much.
As others have said, applesauce in place of some of the fat works well (I say "some", because I've never had a lot of luck replacing all the fat - the breads bake up too gummy and dense) - prune puree is another good one.
I'm not a huge fan of books like "The Sneaky Chef" or "Deceptively Delicious" when it comes to their philosophies on getting kids to eat vegetables - but if you're looking for helpful ideas to boost the health profile of treat-type foods, they might be worth checking out. "Deceptively Delicious" for example, has a chocolate chip cookie recipe that includes whole chickpeas - from what I hear from people who've made/tried them, they taste pretty good. Stuff like this isn't the greatest if that's the only way you're getting your veggies - but certainly they're better vs. the regular, non-modified version if it's just an occasional treat.
Ingredients
2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup apple butter
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup golden seedless raisins
Directions
Preheat oven to 350, mist an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan w/ nonstick cooking spray
In a large mixing bowl sift together the first 7 ingredients (the dry ingredients).
Combine the wet ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk together very well
Pour the wet into the dry ingredients until everything is evenly moistened (the batter will be stiff). Fold in the raisins.
Spoon batter into loaf pan, distribute evenly along the length of the pan but don't spread the batter to the edges, that will happen as it is baking. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour until a knife comes out clean.
Remove bread from oven and turn the bread out of the loaf pan onto a cooling rack. Wait until bread cools before slicing. If you have left overs, wrap in plastic and it should keep for about a week.
Healthy Quick Breads for Winter
