Healthy Holiday Baking

exercising at a more vigorous intensity for less time can burn as many calories or even more, depending on the activity.

How do you know whether you are exercising moderately or vigorously? At a moderate intensity, you will breathe faster but be able to hold a conversation, and you may break a light sweat. At a vigorous intensity, you will sweat and breathe rapidly, and conversation will be difficult without gasping.

If you’ve noticed the middle-aged spread setting in, try revamping your exercise program by increasing your daily exercise time and intensity as much as possible. Different things motivate different people, so choose the options that will help keep you most inclined to move more throughout the day.

Here are four ways to help you squeeze in more daily exercise: l Commit to a fitness, dance, or martial arts class.

Having a set time on your daily schedule can help.

Mix up the types of activities to prevent boredom

and if you’re a parent, try a family-oriented class such as parent-child swimming or martial arts on the weekends. l Use an Internet-based or cell phone app to get e-mail or text message reminders to exercise.

Some research has shown that getting electronic reminders can increase adherence to a regular exercise and diet program. l Exercise in 15-minute intervals four times daily.

Fitting in a fast 15-minute walk before work, at lunch, and twice in the evening may be more manageable than 60 minutes all at once. l Join a gym and sign up for personal training or hire a trainer to come to your home. Investing money is a motivator for some, as is the one-on-one attention. Personal trainers can also help evaluate your fitness goals and design an exercise routine best suited for your fitness level.

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One of my favorite things about the holidays is the opportunity (or perhaps I should say excuse!) to stir up all those old family recipes that have been passed down through the generations—fruit pies, pumpkin and banana breads, and cookies that seem to be loaded with everything but the kitchen sink. And one challenge of all this heavy baking is enjoying the goods without putting on the pounds, clogging the arteries, or derailing the diets of guests with diabetes. To make it still more difficult, I like to try to add some nutritional benefit to the tasty mix, too.

I’ve always replaced oils in cakes with fruit purées, margarine with light olive

oil, and white flour (where it works) with wheat flour, but some tricks of the trade aren’t so obvious. Just ask Janet Zappala, author of My Italian Kitchen: Home-Style Recipes Made Lighter and Healthier. “I’ve always been interested in more healthful eating, but what really got me thinking about the foods I make was when my mother died of cancer,” she says. The family tragedy inspired her to rewrite all her mom’s beloved recipes.

Find the Culprits To lighten those holiday cakes and cookies you love, the first step is to figure out which ingredients pile on the calories. Richard Coppedge, Jr, a

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december 2010

Healthy Holiday Desserts

certified master baker at The Culinary Institute of America, says the two chief culprits are fat and sugar. If you want to stick with your plan to increase nutrition and decrease calories, he says, it’s important to make it as easy on yourself as possible.

“Try a fat replacer that’s commonplace,” he advises. Applesauce and nonfat yogurts, for example, which are readily available, can replace oil or butter in many common holiday baked goods.

“Think about where it’s easiest to cut calories,” Coppedge adds. It’s easy to replace sugar with a sugar substitute. And you can replace one third of high-fat or high-calorie ingredients with a low-fat version so you can keep the texture and consistency while still reducing calories.

AND FOR SOMETHING MORE INDULGENT… From time to time, especially at the holidays, you may want something just a little more indulgent. You’ll find more than 100 temptations by renowned bakers and bakeries in Green & Black’s Organic Ultimate Chocolate Recipes. For the holidays, you can make Chocolate

Another major calorie hauler is chocolate, which is loaded with fat. Coppedge suggests replacing it with cocoa powder for the color and flavor, using unsweetened chocolate, or (if you’re using it in cookies) pressing chocolate chips onto the cookie surface instead of baking them into the cookie as a whole.

It Won’t Always Taste the Same Zappala says one of the tough aspects of overhauling some of her family’s recipes was adjusting her palate to the different textures and flavors. One of her favorite holiday recipes is her mom’s buttery Crescent Cookies. “They just melted in your mouth,” she says.

But she wanted to “clean them up.” So Zappala now uses Earth Balance or Smart Balance spreads instead of butter and whole wheat pastry flour in place of all-purpose flour. Substituting just those two ingredients, she explains, cuts the cookies’ calorie load in half.

She admits that an ingredient switch will often result in a somewhat different end product. “The Crescent Cookies no longer have the creamy texture and they’re thinner, but they taste essentially the same,” she explains.

Christmas Pudding or Bûche de Noël. There are cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery, Brownie Crisps from Maida Heatter, and L’Artisan’s Chocolate Martini. But it’s not all about decadence. If you want to remain virtuous, caloriewise, you’ll find recipes for luscious low-fat items, such as Annie Bell’s Guilt-Free Chocolate Cake, and for gluten and allergen-free treats, like Gluten-Free Chocolate Fudge Pudding. (It’s also a great gift for all the chocoholics on your list.) But remember, a little goes a long way so, in the spirit of the holidays, share. www.kylecathie.com — KJ

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Today’s Diet & Nutrition

Reduced-Calorie Rice Pudding

Replacement Reference Guide: Fat, Sugar, and Calories Butter and oil: Replace butter or oil with mashed or puréed fruits such as bananas, dates, or apples. Avoid margarine, as it usually contains trans-fatty acids and can give baked goods a strange flavor. If you do use oil, try healthier alternatives such as olive, coconut, or canola, which contain good-for-you fats.

Flour: You can often use whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular all-purpose flour. Just be sure it’s pastry flour and not just whole wheat flour, which is fine for breads but not pastry items. Use whole wheat white flour if you can’t find whole wheat pastry flour, says Zappala. Coppedge says you can get away with Reduced-Calorie Banana Bread

using whole wheat flour in combination with white flour, replacing about 25% of the flour weight with whole wheat. Using more than that, however, will change the product’s texture.

Zappala has worked some similar healthy magic with her family’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe, incorporating Earth Balance, whole wheat pastry flour, low-fat sour cream, and organic raw sugar. She keeps the eggs in the recipes and discourages home bakers from omitting or reducing them.

“Eggs are good for you if you’re a healthy person,” she points out.

While a serving of this healthier coffee cake version still weighs in at 571 calories, there is no trans fat or saturated fat.

“It’s a mindset,” Zappala says. “Your palate is used to certain tastes. You may have to adjust expectations.” And, of course, about those recipes that you just can’t bear to change at all, don’t worry. You don’t have to give up everything.

“If you’re all about quality,” says Coppedge, “then you need to train yourself to eat less of the food. Eat a half portion of that crème brûlée.”

Sugar: Replace high-calorie sweeteners like sugar with agave nectar (a little goes a long way), real maple syrup, brown rice syrup, molasses, honey, or Sucanat.

Chocolate: Substitute unsweetened cocoa for chocolate. If you’re melting chocolate, try a combination of cocoa powder and buttermilk.

Eggs: Use two egg whites to replace one egg.

Dairy: Use low-fat evaporated or condensed milk in place of heavy cream.

Nuts: Nuts are good for you but generally contain a significant amount of fat, so use them in moderation if a recipe calls for them. Lower-fat varieties include almonds, hazelnuts, and peanuts. If you’re really concerned about calories, however, you can replace nut toppings with a crunchy cereal.

Pie crusts and fillings: For pie crusts, use cookie crumb crusts instead of buttery crusts. For fillings, skip the butter and use sugar alcohols instead of sugar.

DEBORAH R. HUSO is a freelance writer based in Blue Grass, Virginia. Author of the book Moon Blue Ridge & Smoky Mountains, she frequently writes about travel, agriculture, wildlife, the environment, and outdoor recreation. december 2010

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Healthy Holiday Desserts

1 teaspoon vanilla ⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon

1

⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg

1

⁄4 teaspoon allspice

1

Whole or chopped pecans for garnish To Make Crust: Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Lightly

grease a 9-inch springform pan. Wrap the outside of the pan with foil. In a food processor, pulse together the cookies and pecans until they’re finely ground.

In a medium-size bowl, combine the cookie mixture with the melted butter alternative and the Sucanat; mix thoroughly. Press the crust mixture onto the bottom and 2 inches up the sides of the pan. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven; set it aside. Keep the oven on.

Pumpkin Cheesecake This dessert will make you a star! Given to me by my dear friend Frank, this cheesecake has elevated me to star status in my home. It’s great for the holidays or any time you want an exceptional treat.

Prep time: 15-20 minutes Cook time: 1 hour, 5 minutes Serves 8

To Make Filling: In a large mixing bowl, blend the

cream cheese and Sucanat until smooth. Add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice; beat until smooth.

To Assemble and Cook: Pour the filling into the

baked crust. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula to get all the filling. Bake the cheesecake until the center is set and the edges begin to crack, about 1 hour, 5 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven; cool for 20 minutes. Chill uncovered for 6 hours. Garnish with whole or chopped pecans.

Crust 1 10-ounce bag gingersnap cookies, crushed (about 2 cups)

*Sucanat is an unrefined, unprocessed sugar that is a more healthful alternative to refined brown sugar.

⁄2 cup chopped pecans

1

⁄4 cup natural buttery spread (such as Earth

1

Balance or Smart Balance), melted

Nutritional Note: Pumpkin is loaded with beta-

carotene and vitamin E.

1 tablespoon Sucanat* Nutrition Facts (per serving): Calories: 260; Total Fat: 15

Filling

gms; Sodium: 298 mgs; Carbohydrates: 39 gms; Protein:

3 8-ounce packages reduced-fat cream cheese,

12 gms; Fiber: 5.1 gms

softened 1 cup Sucanat 1 cup canned pumpkin 3 eggs

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Today’s Diet & Nutrition

Recipe by Janet Zappala, used with permission from My Italian Kitchen: Home-Style Recipes Made Lighter & Healthier, www.addicusbooks.com