Healthy baked goods

[CRSunrise]

I've gotten into baking here recently because I bought myself a really nice KitchenAid standalone mixer. I wouldn't mind doing something in baking where I get paid. However, I don't want all the foods I make to be the usual kind. I need to stuff that's healthy in one way or another, whether it's low sugar, glutten free, etc. etc.

Any suggestions?

[Dominique]

I think before you turn this into a business, you should experiment on yourself (and owning a KitchenAid mixer doesn’t make you a professional baker). "Healthy in one way or another" is a bit vague. Google recipes that meet your criteria for healthiness and look appealing to you, and try them.

[CRSunrise]

I never said that having a KitchenAid mixer would make me a professional baker. I just like the idea of being one at some point because it could be something to do with my kids.

As far as experimenting, I have done some recipes over the last few weeks. I just haven't found a whole lot of recipes out there that are healthy baked goods that don't involve the more expensive ingredients, such as Stevia or almond flour.

[SunsetRunner]

@CRSunrise you haven't found many recipes because baked goods are not the healthiest of foods by definition 😉 I have tried that. I did some baking. Reduced sugar by use of stevia, using pumpkin puree instead of butter etc. Still, though, you need fats in your baked products and anything else than sugar tastes strange. I mean, it tastes sweet but it's like eating two different foods in the same time. It doesn't blend in nicely. I tried also to find a replacement for eggs as my wife doesn't like them. There are lots of substitutes and ways of baking such goods but if you bake healthier one and unhealthy side by side then it all comes to the flavour and sadly, the unhealthy one takes a cake 😉 Easier to make, tastes better, easier to measure. Making a pound cake using alternative ingredients is quite a challenge. With standard ingredients, you just know proportions. With substitutes, it takes some calculations to be done or else your baking will fail ( happened to my pound cake, many muffins, experimental "healthy" pastries ). One day I said to myself "screw it, I'm gonna make one unhealthy strawberry gateau". As I said I have done and it was just heaven. Yeah, one slice was over 500kcal but truly I prefer to have this one slice and enjoy once in a while the flavour. Nobody says I have to eat all in one sitting 😉

I don't want to discourage you and if you have great results I'm hoping you are going to share 🙂 I'm just saying from my experience as I walked down this road already and decided to turn around 🙂

To be more on the topic, my advice is:

- don't look for healthy recipes - there are not too many of them anyway

- find a recipe you like and try to make it healthy

- look for substitutes of ingredients considered as unhealthy

- if you find certain processes unhealthy, find a workaround

- experiment and see if you can lower fat content, sugar or even make it dairy free

- to make a healthy food first make an "unhealthy" as a reference

- and last but not least - try not to sacrifice the flavour ( this is the hardest part where I failed ).

Good luck 🙂

[MagsOnTheBeach]

Find a specialty - I have a friend with a sugar free bakery.  She doesn't do gluten free because some people have severe allergies and she doesn't want cross contamination. I make sourdough bread and other breads, it is healthy and you can use different grains, nuts, and seeds.

Baking is expensive - flours, butter, food replacements - all add up.

For me, healthy or not, pounds started to creep up when I get deep into baking projects.  To start, I used King Arthur Flour's website.