I love baking but never seem to have enough time to do it. Tonight I'm going to bake chocolate cupcakes with whole wheat flour and white chocolate chips. I manipulated the recipe to come out to just 125 calorie per cupcake, minus icing.

For the icing I'm going to do it individually and use a mixture of 1 teaspoon Philadelphia lite cream cheese and 1 teaspoon raspberry Polaner All Fruit = 150 calories total.

What was the last thing you baked? Share the recipe if you have it.

Oooh, that sounds great! What's your recipe?

Here's my latest: Low fat, less sugar pumpkin apple bread. Simple and good! I substituted stevia for both the sugar and the splenda, and that worked well. Whole wheat flour was a problem though - it came out too dense and dry.

Here's the calorie info without sugar:

1 1/2 cups Flour 670
1 tsp. Baking soda
7.5 oz Pumpkin puree 250
2 Eggs, large 145
3/4 cup Applesauce 150
2 tbsp. Stevia (powder)
Salt, pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup Water

6 servings = 205 cals each

I made cinnamon biscotti, with a few modifications:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs (I used egg substitute)
2 tablespoons stick margarine, melted (I used butter)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325°.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine eggs, margarine, and vanilla; stir with a whisk. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 10 times. Shape dough into a 16-inch-long roll. Place roll on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; flatten to a 3/4-inch thickness. Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; sprinkle over dough. I shaped it into 2 loaves, tried slicing them thinner, and ended up getting around 32 biscotti. I did a bad thing and decreased the initial baking time slightly, I wouldn't do this the next time.

Bake at 325° for 30 minutes. Remove roll from baking sheet; let cool 10 minutes on a wire rack. Cut roll diagonally into 24 (1/2-inch) slices. Place, cut sides down, on a baking sheet. Bake at 325° for 10 minutes. Turn cookies over; bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet; let cool completely on a wire rack.

Yield: 24 biscotti

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 96(17% from fat); FAT 1.8g (sat 0.4g,mono 0.7g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 2.2g; CHOLESTEROL 28mg; CALCIUM 25mg; SODIUM 44mg; FIBER 0.4g; IRON 0.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 17.6g


When I do any baking I tend to weigh the overall finished product. (ie. a loaf of bread, never slices evenly) This made 25 ounces, slightly lower calories because of the egg substitute. I average sized cookie ended up being about 60 calories. Quite nice really.

I make lots of baked goods - last night I made a peanut butter chocolate cake (whole wheat flour, splenda, a small amount of peanut butter and cocoa icing...lots and lots of cocoa powder!). That inspired me to make PB & J cakes for tonight.

I get a 175 calorie dessert budget each night, so long as I spend it on mostly healthy foods (ie, whole wheat flour, natural pb, fruit...) so they fit perfectly when baked in individual ramekins.

The last thing I baked was before I started calorie counting and I made a really fattening high calorie pumpkin cheesecake and ate about half all myself!

I made a box of Trader Joe's chocolate truffle brownies. Instead of adding a stick of butter and 2 eggs, I just added a can of organic pumpkin. Took a LOT of stirring but they muffins turned out GREAT!

Oh my goodness. I loooove to bake. I actually love to decorate cakes so none of the recipes were too great, it was more of the presentation Although for Thanksgiving I made chocolate pumpkin cake which was very different but good and red velvet for Christmas.

I always want to make one just to decorate but I don't have the heart to just throw it uneaten into the trash.

Here's a pic of one of my creations:


It's a replica of my husband's dirtbike helmet for his birthday.

Can you post the recipes to those cakes? We all love peanut butter over here and could use some more low cal/healthy recipes.

Stacy- that cake is awesome! Do you do cake decorating on the side? That would be a nice little side business and you wouldn't feel guilty about throwing it away, as someone else would eat it. If I had talent like that, I'd surely be using it for side money!

I made fudgy chocolate brownies. Basically, it's a box of fudge brownie mix plus a can of pumpkin. Mix and bake in a 13x9 dish at 350 for 35 minutes. I'll cut it into about 24 pieces, individually wrap them, and freeze them. Then, I microwave one at a time when I'm craving chocolate. Top with some SF cool whip and sliced strawberries if you've got them, and it's soooooo tasty.

I made banana nut muffins.

prepackaged kind you just add water to. mmm.

I LOVE to bake. I don't think I could survive without baking. It's so soothing a process.

I make cookies a lot. Last time I made pumpkin chocolate chip. Sometimes I tweak recipes to use ww pastry flour and less sugar, but sometimes I treat myself with regular ones. I do make them small though. I have a 1T scoop that I use to make cookies. That way they are always under 100 calories per cookie. In my experience the best cookie to convert to healthier ingredients is snickerdoodles! Using ww pastry flour doesn't change the texture/flavor at all and lowering the sugar doesn't seem to effect it either. Yum!

I also like to substitute flax seed meal for fat in some baked goods (3T flax for 1T oil if I remember correctly~it's on the bag.) You do have to keep an eye on it though, because flax burns easily. This method works great in muffins, breads, pancakes, etc.

I like to bake bread too. I bake a couple loaves every week or two. Last week I made Heidelberg Rye bread. Very yummy! And surprisingly makes great pb toast!

The last thing I baked was a butternut squash and a bulb of garlic.

I made Fiber One Muffins. I make these every week and eat one a day as a snack. They come out great, very moist.

Fiber One Muffins
• 1 1/2 cups Fiber One cereal
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup Splenda or sugar
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 cup Eggbeaters or egg whites
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• 2-4 oz blueberries (fresh or frozen), raspberries (fresh or frozen), diced cherries, diced peaches/apricots or other fruit (optional)

Soak Fiber One in boiling water until all the water is absorbed.

Blend dry ingredients together in a bowl (flour, bakiing powder, salt, Splenda, spice).

Mix together wet ingredients (Eggbeaters, pumpkin puree, milk) and stir into dry mixture along with Fiber One (and fruit, if using) just until lightly mixed. Do not overstir!

Divide batter into 10 muffins in tin sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and bake at 375 until browned, about 20 minutes. Do not overcook!

Per muffin (with splenda and optional fruit): 80 calories, 2.5g fat, 18g carbs (5 g fiber), 3 g protein.