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There are some tricks to making baked goods that have a good 'mouth feel' (as the experts put it) and that taste good while removing or reducing the fat content. Here are some suggestions that I hope you'll try.

Many commercial cake mixes call for oil or melted butter. Replace this with strained apple sauce or fruit puree. It's rather easy to make, or you can even buy jars of it in form of baby food.

Add dried fruits or finely chopped apples or pears in loaf cakes and muffins to replace some of the fat. The fruit will give your cake or banana bread more body and moisture with less fat. I had to experiment with this a bit, but I find if I use half the oil called for and chopped apples, it works well.

Use Pam or other sprays instead of coating the inside of baking pans with butter or shortening. Read the label to make sure the spray can contains 'good' fats such as Canolla oil or lecithin.

Use pastry or cake flour when baking as this absorbs the liquids or the fats at a better rate and you will need to use less.

Choose nuts that have the good' fat in them. Almonds are excellent. Pecans give any baked good a wonderful flavor and texture. If you can afford them, Macadamia nuts are wonderful!

Avoid coconut and replace it with healthy chopped nuts. Coconut has a lot of bad' fat and the commercial shredded coconut also has loads of sugar added to it, along with other stuff to keep it from sticking together.

Use egg beaters or two egg whites in place of the egg yolk.

Use whole milk instead of heavy cream (if you use skim or low fat milk often doesn't work well).

Replace half the sour cream with low-fat yogurt. Replacing all of the sour cream will give your baked good a sour flavor.

Make fruit pies with just several cut-out circles of crust on top instead of a full crust.

You don't have to give up every bit of fat if you choose wisely and maybe cut back on portion size as well.

Learn more about this author, Pat Merewether.
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