Seasonal Baking

Like I've said before I am not the best baker, but I am happy to see that I am getting better with practice. Below are two recipes for a Low Fat Pumpkin Roll and Nutella Cookies. In both recipes no regular sugar was used, instead I used Stevia. This alone lowers the calories per serving.

The recipe calls for:

3 eggs

1 cup stevia (or sugar)
3/4 cup flour

2/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1 cup confectioner's sugar & some for dusting

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbs butter, softened

8 oz low fat cream cheese

-- Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 15x10x1 inch jelly roll pan & line it with parchment paper. Grease & flour the paper.

-- Beat the eggs on high for 5 minutes in a large bowl. Gradually add the stevia or sugar & pumpkin. Then add the flour, cinnamon & baking soda. Spread batter evenly in pan & sprinkle the walnuts on top.

-- Bake for 15 minutes. Immediately turn the cake onto a linen towel dusted with confectioner's sugar. Peel off the paper & roll it up carefully in the towel. Let it cool.

-- Make the filling: Mix the confectioner's sugar (1 cup), vanilla, butter & cream cheese together until smooth.

-- Carefully unroll the cake. Spread the filling over the cake to within 1 inch of the edges. Roll up again. Cover and chill until serving. Dust with additional confectioner's sugar if desired.

The recipe calls for:

1 cup nutella

1/2 cup stevia

1 cup flour

1 egg

-- Preheat oven to 350. 

-- Blend all the ingredients together well & form into 1 inch balls. Place the balls on a cookie sheet & press down firmly with the bottom of a glass.

-- Bake for 8 minutes. Cool. Enjoy!

A Helpful Giada Tip

"When you're baking, always use room temperature ingredients." -- Giada

Gave Baking Another Try

Baking has been a frustrating struggle for me. Cooking seems much more easy and carefree. I little of this a little of that, just whatever you feel like adding. With baking your measurements need to be exact and I didn't realize the importance of that at first, but now I know. Instead of using a teaspoon like we would eat from to measure I started to use the real measurement spoons.

Today I made low-cal banana chocolate chip cookies from a cookbook I got recently called Taste of Home: Comfort Food Diet Cookbook. They are very good and don't taste diet at all. The texture of them is more like a muffin, but in a cookie shape.

The reciple calls for:

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp baking soda

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

-- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

-- Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg, banana and vanilla to the bowl and beat together. Then combine the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into the mixture gradually and beat until all ingredients are mixed evenly. Lastly, stir in the chocolate chips.

-- Spray baking sheets with cooking oil and add a tablespoon of the batter to the pans about 2 inches apart from eachother.

-- Bake for 9-11 mins or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove the cookies from the baking sheets and put them on wire racks to cool.

The recipes nutritional facts are about 66 calories and 3 g fat per cookie, but I made some substitutes. I used splenda instead of sugar and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter instead of regular butter. With those two substitutes the cookies will end up being even less calories and less fat. It's suppose to make 3 dozen cookies, but I only got a little over 2 dozen out of the batter.

Enjoy! And remember to use those measurement spoons! :)