Baked goods can be a part of a diet meal plan-if the person baking them takes care to make a few simple substitutions to lower the fat content and to boost the nutritional value. And, fortunately, these substitutions aren’t difficult to make. Here are three tips bakers can try to lower the calories and carbohydrates and increase the nutrition in baked goods.

Lower the amount of sugar in the recipe

Many baked good recipes, such as those for cookies and cakes, can be made with less sugar and still taste just as good. In fact, most of the time people won’t even notice that the sugar content has been lowered. Lowering the sugar will lower the calories and carbohydrates in the baked good.

So, start with the amount of sugar called for in the recipe, and lower it by ¼. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, try using ¾ cup of sugar instead. If people still enjoy the taste, make the recipe the next time with 1/3 less of the amount of sugar called for in the original recipe (in this example, you would use 2/3 cup). The third time you make the recipe, you can try using half of the amount of sugar (for this example, the amount would be ½ cup).

Another idea is to substitute the sugar with Splenda, which now has a version of it’s popular sugar substitute for baking.

Substitute the fat in the recipe

Instead of using the butter, margarine, or oil called for in the recipe, try using pureed fruit. You can use applesauce or baby food prunes or any other type of pureed fruit. Experiment with substituting for all of the fat in the recipe-you may only want to substitute for half of the fat, depending upon the recipe.

This substitution decreases the fat content in the recipe and boosts the nutritional value.

Switch out some of the flour

For recipes that call for all-purpose flour, try substituting half of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour. This will add whole grains to the baked good, increasing the nutrition. You can substitute more than half, but some people dislike the taste and consistency.

Try all of these with your baked goods and you’ll find that some small changes can go a long way.

Photo Credit: randomrobert