I've been doing a lot of substitutions when baking lately. Last week I made a high protein/fiber blueberry muffin. I've also recently revamped a zucchini chocolate cake. Twice. Once for lower calories, and once with protein powder and soy flour. My first attempt at a zucchini bread ended up just a touch dry. The next one will be better. Here's a few things I've learned so far.
- egg whites are an okay substitution, however, they seem to make the finished product a little more tough. I figure as long as you're not making a single serving, whole eggs are better
- I've only used Splenda (so far) once - the brown sugar blend. It seemed to do a pretty good job.
- substituting applesauce for oil is a good choice, however, leave a small amount of the oil in - don't know why, but it does make it better
- adding in a small amount of soy flour can actually make things a little softer, however, it doesn't rise as well so you need to adjust by adding more rising agent and/or wheat gluten
- watch the moistness of the batter. A couple of times when playing I've made it too dry. You end up with a dry/tougher final product.
So, if you're interested:
http://realcdn-recipes.blogspot.com/...hini-cake.html
This one was really good. I gave pieces to a couple of neighbours and asked for opinions. Everyone was surprised that it was low-fat and relatively low-cal. I took it from 181cals per piece to 106 (less if you skip the chocolate chip icing).
http://realcdn-recipes.blogspot.com/...n-muffins.html
Now, I'm not a huge muffin fan but these are starting to grow on me. They ended up small, but two muffins are under 200 calories with 14g of protein and 6g of fiber.
If anyone is interested in the protein powder chocolate cake recipe just let me know. It's on my list of things to put up on my recipe site but I'm just running behind. It turned out pretty well, more of a dense gingerbread type quality though.