Cakes and Icings

A 3" by 3" piece of cake with 1/2 cup of light ice cream. 

  In moderation, cakes can fit into a healthy eating plan. The main fat sources are vegetable oil and 2 or 3 eggs, making them lower in saturated fat than cookies and pastries made with solid fats. Of course, they still have a considerable amount of refined flour and sugar, and the icing or frosting usually has to be made with a solid fat to achieve the appropriate consistency. If you have to use a solid fat, I recommend butter both for taste and to avoid trans fats in hydrogenated products. Remember portion sizes, too. A serving of cake is about a 3" by 3" square, which is perfectly adequate without making you feel like you just downed a whole bag of sugar.

  Portion size and moderation are always important, but today I've come up with some solutions to the saturated fat dilemma in icing. My first idea is to use a fruit topping, and secondly I have a new recipe for frosting with no solid fats. 

Cake with cherry topping.

  The cake that I made today was inspired by a photo of cake, cherries, and ice cream on Tumblr. I made a cake from a mix and topped it with cherry pie filling in place of frosting, then added 1/2 cup scoop of light vanilla bean ice cream before serving. 

  Just bake the cake per the instructions, then add the fruit topping about 5 minutes before the cake is done. Continue baking so the fruit gets nice and warm. Any combination of cake, fruit topping, and ice cream can be used. Be creative and use your favorites. The back of the Betty Crocker cake mix box even suggested adding a layer of apricot preserves under a thin layer of icing.

  Now I have an actual recipe for chocolate cake and frosting from Hershey's Cocoa. The cake is a typical chocolate cake made from scratch, but the frosting has no solid fats! Dream Whip is used for texture and consistency, so butter, margarine, or shortening are not needed.

Hershey's Light Chocolate Cake

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup Hershey's Cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

6 Tbsp. extra light corn oil spread

1 cup sugar

1 cup skim milk

1 Tbsp. white vinegar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions: 

Heat oven to 350 F. Spray two 8" round pans with cooking spray. 

In bowl, stir flour, cocoa, and baking soda. 

In saucepan, melt corn oil spread; stir in sugar. Remove from heat. Add milk, vinegar, and vanilla to mixture in saucepan; stir. Add dry ingredients; whisk until well blended. 

Pour evenly into pans. Bake 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean. Cool. 

Fill and frost top. Refrigerate. 12 servings.

Light Cocoa Frosting

Ingredients: 

1 envelope Dream Whip dry whipped topping mix

1/2 cup cold skim milk

1 Tbsp. Hershey's cocoa

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions: 

In small mixing bowl, stir together all ingredients. Beat on high speed of mixer about 4 minutes or until soft peaks form. 

Each serving contains 160 calories and 115 mg sodium with the frosting, 140 calories and 105 mg sodium without frosting, and no cholesterol. 
This cake is low enough in total carbs that it can fit into a diabetic meal plan as long as the proper portion size is consumed. However, the cherry topped cake with ice cream is a little too high in carbs for diabetics.

How to Make Healthy Nachos

As a dietitian, I'm always looking for ways to make foods healthier and to add extra vegetables to meals. Nachos are actually one of my favorite foods, but the typical nachos with salty cheese sauce would definitely be considered junk food. Preparing foods at home, rather than eating out, is a great way to reduce calories and improve the nutritional content of meals.

Start with tortilla chips, which are lower in saturated fat and sodium than most chips, just be aware of the serving size. Then add an assortment of your favorite vegetables, such as black beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Top them off with part-skim mozzarella cheese, which is the lowest fat natural cheese. Add salsa for another serving of vegetables. You can microwave each plate of nachos, or heat the ingredients in pots on the stove top when serving a group. Garnish with fresh lime and cilantro for extra flavor. I like to add a side salad with fresh greens and ranch dressing, as well.

New Series on Biscuits

Biscuits

   This is the first recipe in a series I'm working on with biscuits. It could also be called "How to Make Biscuits Without Shortening". 

   As a Dietitian in the South, one of the questions I get a lot is how to make biscuits that are healthier. Traditionally, shortening is used as the fat source and to add texture and firmness. Shortening, however, contains those yucky artery clogging trans fats that we want to avoid. In this series, I will be exploring different ingredients and methods of preparation, and comparing the tastes of each one. 

   This first recipe for pinch biscuits is kind of a work in progress. The end product tastes amazing, but I may try to refine the preparation as the dough was thin and slightly difficult to work with. 

   These biscuits contain vegetable oil-a healthy fat, and butter, which has no trans fats like shortening. The butter does have cholesterol and saturated fat, though. Plus, there is a whole stick of butter in the recipe! While it is not the healthiest, anything with an entire stick of real butter has got to taste good.

Pinch Biscuits 

Ingredients: 

2 1/2 to 3 cups self-rising flour

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup butter

1 cup buttermilk

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 F. 

Mix ingredients in a large bowl, gradually adding 2 cups flour, and cutting in the butter.

Place dough on a floured surface, and knead in the last 1/2 to 1 cup flour, until dough can be formed with hands.  

Form palm-size biscuits with your hands, and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. 

Bake for 30 minutes.

 

The Low-Fat Diet Myth

Remember in the 90's when you could get fat-free everything?  Fat-free cookies, chips, salad dressings.  Many of these products are still around today, but they are not always the healthiest options.  
In most fat-free or low-fat products, the fat is replaced with sugar, which is not any healthier than fat, and may actually be worse.  What we normally think of as fat, as a broad term, is saturated fat.  This is the bad fat, which along with cholesterol can lead to higher blood cholesterol levels and heart disease risk. 
What we have left out, though, are the good fats, the unsaturated fats-polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. These fats are common in the Mediterranean diet, and have shown benefits to heart health and even to weight management.  The foods pictured below all contain healthy, good fats.  Foods like nuts, fish, vegetable oils, and even chocolate are good for your health. They have been shown to improve cholesterol levels and to reduce inflammation throughout the body. In fact, the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourage increased polyunsaturated fat intake.

Good fats.

In addition to heart health, eating good fats can help you feel full and more satisfied after a meal, since fat provides flavor and takes longer to digest.  Moderation is always the best practice, as fats do add calories to foods. Try stir-frying or lightly pan frying in vegetable oil to get the benefits of oils without a lot of extra calories. Be sure to limit servings of nuts and peanut butter to about 2 tablespoons.  Reduced fat salad dressings and margarine are good options for getting good fats with fewer calories. Eat a variety of seafood, such as salmon and tuna for healthy omega-3 fats. 

The bad fats.  
If you grew up in the South like me, your mother probably had a grease cup.  The drippings from bacon and sausage filled this cup, and were used to fry and prepare other foods.  Unfortunately, this type of fat is mostly saturated fat-the bad fat.  High fat meats also contain cholesterol, which should be limited.  The rule of thumb is to limit fats that are solid at room temperature, as they are usually saturated fats.  Try limiting high fat cuts of meat, and replace them with seafood or lean meats.  Eggs are also fine in moderation.  Also cut back on dairy fats like whole milk and soft cheeses. Try 1% milk, non-fat yogurt, and part-skim mozzarella cheese.  If you eat high-fat dairy such as butter or ice cream, just have a small amount.  Substitute grease drippings with vegetable oil.  Olive oil has been the gold standard for a few years now, but any vegetable oil is fine, and is much less expensive than olive oil or even butter.

Bad fats.

In conclusion, eating healthy fats can be as easy as substituting oil for grease, snacking on peanuts, or having fish more often. The healthy fats are not only beneficial to your health, they also add flavor to foods and keep you full longer than fat-free foods. 

Seafood recipe!

Mom's Seafood Salad

This is a yummy recipe that my mother makes.  The recipe lists imitation crab meat as the main ingredient, but any seafood can be substituted, including real crab or shrimp.

8 oz. imitation crab

2 T. lite mayo

2 T. reduced fat sour cream

1/4 cup celery, chopped

2 T. onion, diced fine

          or dried mined onion

1 T. lemon juice

2 T. lemon pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir until crab meat is well coated. 

Serve this crab salad with whole wheat crackers, celery and carrot sticks, or on a sandwich. 

Nutrition tips: Crab and most seafood is a good source of protein and healthy polyunsaturated fats-the good fats. Lite or reduced fat mayo and sour cream also provide good fats with fewer calories.  Reduced fat products are typically better than fat-free because when fat is removed from foods like mayo and salad dressing, it is replaced with sugar. This replaces the healthy unsaturated fats with unhealthy sugar, which is not desirable. 

Lemon pepper can be a great low-sodium seasoning, but be sure to read the label. Some lemon peppers contain salt or sodium. So be aware of what you are using to flavor your food.