Now It’s Possible To Have Your Cake And Eat It, Too

It may be a contradiction, but it’s something devoutly desired among the dessert-loving set: a treat that’s light, luscious and low in calories. Can it be done? Can a sweetheart of a dish really dispense flavor while shedding calories? Of course it can - and you don’t even have to revise your taste buds’ expectations.

“If you know what you’re doing, it’s possible to produce (low-fat desserts) that taste as good as standard recipes,” said Ruth Glick, co-author of “100 Percent Pleasure: From Appetizers to Desserts, the Low-Fat Cookbook for People Who Love to Eat.”

There’s clearly a demand for low-fat cookbooks; hardly a day goes by without a new title hitting the bookstores.

But buyers should beware. There are some terrible recipes out there, recipes that result in dishes with none of the flavor, texture or eye appeal of the items they purport to replace. There are cakes that taste like cardboard, brownies heavy as lead, cookies so sweet they make your teeth ache.

“Low-fat dessert” is something of a contradiction, because fat plays such a large and varied role in baked goods. It adds moistness and lightness, and enhances flavor. Taking fat out alters the chemistry of the dish, and it can also change the way the other ingredients taste or react. Replacing fat with ingredients that will fill all of fat’s roles is the tricky part of slicing fat out of standard recipes.

As a result, the most successful low-fat desserts will not be no-fat. And, rest assured, they will not use non-food ingredients such as butter substitutes or sugar substitutes.

Co-author Nancy Baggett says: “You have to have realistic objectives. It’s probably perfectly realistic to reduce fat in a recipe you like. But it’s probably not possible to take all the fat out.”

When fat is removed from a dish, Baggett said, “You have to compensate, because things will be less flavorful.”

If the recipe is for a spice cookie or spice cake, she increases the amount of spices. “A little orange zest or lemon zest helps bring up the flavor” in some dishes, as does extra vanilla. When she reduces the amount of nuts in a recipe, she toasts the remainder: “They will have a much better flavor.”

Other techniques Baggett advocates are using lower-gluten flours such as cake flour. Gluten is a desirable element in bread, because it makes the dough elastic, but it’s terrible in cakes, because it makes the batter tough. Normally the fat in a recipe helps coat the flour and keep the long, stringy gluten molecules from forming. When you reduce the fat, you need to take other steps to keep the gluten from forming.

The less gluten there is in the flour to begin with, the lighter the batter will be (which is why even some standard recipes call for cake flour). Baggett also suggests stirring the batter as little as possible, because stirring develops the gluten.

Low-fat or nonfat sour cream or yogurt can substitute for some of the sour cream in a recipe, Baggett said. But she warns that substituting for all of the sour cream can cause the recipe to be too acidic, and that can keep cakes and other such desserts from rising.

Her goal is to create a dish that, “When I set it on the table, I don’t have to say, ‘This is low fat.’ I consider that an apology.”

Fat moistens and lubricates other ingredients and traps air in food, leading to the tenderness and lightness people love in baked goods, said California food writer Marie Oser, author of “Luscious Low Fat Desserts” (Chariot Publishing Inc.)

To replace fat, she uses fruit purees, such as applesauce or prune puree - “Fruit pectins work the same way to entrap air” - and a little more leavening. She also likes a product called light silken tofu, available at health-food stores, which can replace eggs and dairy products in recipes. She uses fruit-juice concentrates, such as frozen white grape juice, to replace fat.

Removing and replacing fat are not all there is to adjusting a recipe, however.

“In the same way you pay attention to what you take away, you pay attention to what you’re leaving in,” said Alice Medrich, author of “Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts” (Warner Books).

For instance, she said, fat tends to mask sweetness. So when you remove fat from a recipe, you may also have to reduce the sugar, or the dish will be too sweet.

She also suggests removing some, but not all, of the egg yolks - and unless there’s a large number of eggs called for, not replacing the yolks with whites, because the whites have a binding effect that can make things heavy.

By the same token, Medrich doesn’t recommend substituting all the chocolate in a recipe with cocoa powder, because the cocoa butter in chocolate adds a richness that can’t be replaced.

Cinnamon Coffeecake

From “100 Percent Pleasure: From Appetizers to Desserts, the Low-Fat Cookbook for People Who Love to Eat,” by Nancy Baggett and Ruth Glick (Rodale Press).

Cake:

1-3/4 cups all-purpose or unbleached white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup nonfat sour cream

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup liquid egg substitute

3 tablespoons canola or safflower oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

1-1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

To prepare the cake: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8- by 8-inch baking pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir to mix well.

In a large bowl, combine the sour cream, sugar, egg substitute, oil and vanilla. Stir vigorously until well-blended. Stir in the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with a rubber spatula.

To prepare the topping: In a small cup, stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle mixture evenly over the batter. Bake the cake on the center oven rack for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 9 servings.

Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

From “Luscious Low-Fat Desserts,” by Marie Oser (Chariot Publishing), available at some health-food stores or by calling (800) 628-8244.

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup prune butter

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup egg white

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil an 8-inch square baking pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside.

Cream prune butter and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add egg white to prune mixture. Blend in buttermilk and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients and mix to form batter. Fold in walnuts. Spread into pan and bake on upper rack of oven until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool in pan. Cut and serve.

Yield: 12 brownies.

Fruit Pizza

From “Cook It Light Desserts,” by Jeanne Jones (Macmillan).

1/2 cup warm water

1 teaspoon active dry yeast (check expiration date on label)

3 tablespoons sugar

1-1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons canola oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup fruit-only strawberry jam

3 ounces (3/4 cup) part-skim mozzarella cheese, grated

1-1/2 cups chopped fresh fruit or unsweetened frozen fruit, thawed, such as strawberries, peaches or blueberries

Place the warm water in a small bowl. Sprinkle the yeast and 1 tablespoon of the sugar over the top and stir to combine. Set aside until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Combine the remaining sugar, the flour and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Stir in the oil, vanilla, and yeast mixture and mix until smooth. Remove dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Place dough in a bowl sprayed with a nonstick vegetable spray. Turn dough ball in the bowl so that top is coated with the spray and cover with a wet towel. Set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Punch the dough down and return it to the floured surface. Knead for two minutes and place it back in the sprayed bowl. Allow to rest for 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Roll dough out into a 12-inch circle and place it either on a nonstick pizza pan or one sprayed with nonstick vegetable spray. Top dough with the strawberry jam, spreading it evenly over the top, but leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the jam. Bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and arrange the chopped fruit decoratively over the top. Return to the oven and bake until crust is golden brown around the edges, an additional 5 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before cutting into 8 pie-shaped wedges.

Yield: 8 servings.