OfEliana Liotta
In the «Smart Tips» column we talk about kitchen tricks to make cakes healthier but tasty. From sugar, to oil instead of butter, to flours for thickening
Eating a cream puff from the pastry chef or a homemade cake is an experience not to be denied. Maybe with thrift, recalling Isabel Allende’s warning in the book Afrodita: «It is easy to become a slave to sugar, like caresses, once you have acquired a taste for it». For those who love cooking, here are some tips to get used to less sweet sweets.
Sugar
White or raw, sugar should not exceed the 15% of the total weight of the dough, i.e. 150 grams per kilo of preparation.
The flours
To be preferred wholemeal flours and semi-wholemeal, even just half the dough. Go for it type 0 flours, the use of 100% type 00 or refined rice flour is not recommended. Worth experimenting with doughs
chestnut or hazelnut flours and black bean smoothies.
Thicken
Green light to the help of wheat starch (frumina), potato (starch) and corn (maizena). Agar-agar, obtained from a red algae, is excellent for gelling and thickening.
Vegetarian alternatives
No veto on the use of eggs and cow’s milk as ingredients, considering that it is better not to overdo it with animal products. Instead of cow’s milk you can use a vegetable drink like soy (provided without added sugars). Instead of butter, when possible, use cold-pressed extra virgin olive or seed oil.
Fruit
Fresh, dried and nut fruit are welcome in desserts. For those who love tarts: jams retain some beneficial phytocompounds, such as anthocyanins from strawberries and blueberries, and ellagitannins from raspberries: ideal are composedwhich have a small quantity
of sugars.
Chocolate
Cocoa is a leading player in cakes and puddings. If you use chocolate, melted in a bain-marie or chopped, that’s better dark at least 70%.
The portions
Sweets occupy the top of the Mediterranean diet pyramid, so they are foods that should not be eaten every day: less than three portions a week, whether industrial desserts or homemade biscuits.
* The review is by Lucilla Titta, coordinator of the Smartfood program at the Ieo-European Institute of Oncology.
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