With the holiday season coming to a close, I know a lot of us have had baking on the brain.
I love baking all year round, but I REALLY love holiday baking!
It’s been a challenge to figure out how to make yummy baked goods because I have a sweet tooth and love to bake, BUT I eat minimal grains and sugar.
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Over the years, I’ve found recipes that I love and hacks to turn an unhealthy recipe into a healthy one.
Today, I’m gonna share some of those hacks with you.
Oil/Butter
I used to use good ole vegetable oil like most people. Most recipes still call for vegetable oil.
As an adult, I’ve learned that vegetable oil is pro-inflammatory and we should all avoid it like the plague.
Healthier oils are organic olive oil, organic almond oil, organic coconut oil or a butter that’s made from grass fed cows.
While we can use an organic olive oil in our baking, I do feel like olive oil has a pretty strong taste.
Organic refined coconut oil is my go to for all my baking needs. I choose refined because most of the coconut flavor is removed.
Organic refined coconut oil is clear and flavorless, for the most part. Coconut oil does harden if it’s 74 degrees or cooler. To soften it you can either pop it in the microwave or leave it near a heat source (ie flame on stovetop) for a bit to melt.
I also use the refined coconut oil to grease the dish I’m using to bake.
Related Post: GLUTEN FREE GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE
Monk Fruit
As I mentioned, I have a HUGE sweet tooth. I used to eat so much sugar that it’s no wonder I suffered from migraines and had lots of oral health issues.
I like to have my cake and eat it too…that is the point of cake after all! So I had to find an alternative to sugar that wasn’t more harmful than sugar itself and didn’t have a gross after taste.
Thankfully, I found monk fruit sweetener! It’s low glycemic, can be used in keto baking, can be non-GMO, tastes and acts like sugar and is completely natural (depending on the brand).
You can literally sub monk fruit for sugar in a 1:1 ratio. If you use powdered monk fruit sweetener, I would use less monk fruit than what the recipe calls for.
Cassava Flour
Did you know there is no such thing as a healthy grain?
That’s right! Not one type of grain is healthy for humans. The worst of the worst are wheat, rye, barley, millet, and sorghum.
Grains can be linked to every disease out there.
I would highly recommend reading Wheat Belly to truly understand how harmful all grains are to every person. It’s eye opening!
I used to use the gluten free flour blends because I know that I’m sensitive to gluten and these flour blends are an easy 1:1 sub for wheat flour.
Then, I learned that the gluten free blends that contain potato starch, tapioca starch, and rice flour make our blood sugar sky rocket higher than sugar does.
After hunting for a replacement and testing a variety of flours out, I have totally fallen in love with Cassava Flour.
It’s amazing! Cassava flour is made from Yuca root, it’s totally natural, not a grain, is flavorless and is a very fine flour.
In the beginning, I was subbing cassava flour in a 1:1 ratio for wheat flour. And that worked well. However, I found this swap chart on Otto’s website. The recipes I use cassava flour in are even better after using these conversions.
Want an easy recipe to start using cassava flour with? Check out my Healthy Chocolate Chip Pancake recipe.
Related Post: SHANNON’S SWEET POTATO TOAST
Food Color
My favorite holiday treats are the sugar cut out cookies with royal icing that you can color.
My go to recipe for these cookies are from All Day I Dream About Food.
One ingredient we definitely want to avoid ALL. THE. TIME is artificial food coloring. You can learn more about the harmful effects of artificial food dye here.
Natural food dyes that don’t suck is another ingredient that took me a while to find.
When I first began my search, the options were VERY limited.
My top two favorite’s for natural vibrant food color (and sprinkles) are Color Kitchen and Color Garden.
Color Garden is my favorite for the actual vibrant color. They come in little packets that have the liquid/gel inside. Each packet is a single use for 1 pound of icing. The only drawback is if you don’t use the entire packet, there isn’t any easy way to store these. Color Garden has a bigger variety of colors like pastel and holiday colors.
Color Kitchen food dye come in powder form that are also in little packets. Storing these can still be a little messy, but not as bad as the liquid from Color Garden. Color Kitchen does only offer the basic colors.
While there are more unhealthy ingredients out there, these simple swaps will make your fave recipe significantly healthier! Your tastebuds will be happy and your body will thank you.
If you need more suggestions for swaps, feel free to email me at Bri@hippiedippiemom.com.
Let me know which swap you’ll make first in the comments.
As we know better, we do better –
Bri
Brianne Pruitt is a wife, mom, Registered Nurse and Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. After winning the battle with her own brain fog, Bri became passionate about guiding mom’s through the journey of busting their brain fog so that they can be the energetic, happy mama they crave to be. www.hippiedippiemom.com
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