The ultimate guide to low calorie baking

This post is all about low calorie baking.

If you’re on a weight loss journey, you may have the common belief that you need to cut out all your favorite foods in order to lose weight. I am here to tell you that this is far from the truth. You can lose weight and still enjoy all your favorite meals, desserts and snacks!

This post contains affiliate links, to learn more, read my disclosure policy.

I have lost over 40kg and have never felt like I was missing out on all the delicious foods I loved. From mac and cheese to chocolate cake, I ate it all. The secret to making all your favorite dishes whilst still losing weight is simply cutting down the calories with lower calorie alternatives. So if a recipe calls for butter, use applesauce or if a recipe calls for sugar, use stevia or another 0 calorie alternative.

I have put together a low calorie baking cheat sheet which includes lower calorie alternatives and swaps to common high-calorie ingredients.

Low Calorie Baking

If you have a massive sweet tooth and struggle to lose weight because of this, this is the post for you. Cutting out desserts or certain snacks may seem like a good idea but you’ll likely feel deprived sooner or later. You can just turn those high calories desserts and snacks into much lower calorie treats with a few simple adjustments.

During my weight loss journey, I probably did more baking than I ever have before. I was at a point where I was still craving all my favorite desserts but I couldn’t find low calorie alternatives without it being the tiniest portion size ever! I started making my own recipes and honestly I could hardly tell the difference between the high calorie treats I once loved and the low calorie alternatives I came up with!

Low calorie baking is actually a lot easier than people may think. You just need to know what to swap out for high calorie ingredients and you’re good to go. This post is about the top tips on how to make delicious low calorie treats without compromising taste or texture!

1. Get a good sweetener

Honestly sweetener can really make or break a recipe. Sweeteners are artificial alternatives to sugar that are typically made from chemicals or natural ingredients. They are usually very low in calories or have 0 calories.

Some are sickly sweet, some have a bitter aftertaste and some sweeteners are just plain bad tasting. I spent the first few months of my weight loss journey trying almost every sweetener under the sun before finding some really great ones that I love. This post on the best 0 calorie sugar alternatives contains everything you need to know about sweeteners and how to pick out a delicious one for all your low calorie bakes.

Having a good 0 calorie sweetener is essential to making the best low calorie bakes. Just by removing sugar from a recipe and replacing it with 0 calorie sweetener, you can eliminate a big portion of the calories!

One thing I have noticed about low calorie baking and sweeteners is that different recipes work better with some sweeteners than they do with others. There are some delicious 0 calorie syrups that work well with cold drinks or recipes that don’t require baking but don’t work so well in hot drinks or baked goods. I find that having 2 or 3 top 0 calorie sweeteners is the perfect way to go. This gives you a few different options for recipes so they come out super delicious every time!

My personal favorite sweeteners to bake with are Stevia and this Sukrin brown sugar alternative. There are tons and tons to pick from out there so when you find one you love, hold on to it because sweeteners that taste good and have no bitter aftertaste are very few and far between!

2. Use a kitchen scale

My kitchen scale is single-handedly the best and most used kitchen appliance I own, especially during my weight loss journey. Not only is it great for keeping on top of your calories whilst in a calorie deficit, it also makes low calorie baking so much easier. It honestly makes just general cooking and baking so much easier too.

Knowing exactly how much of each ingredient that goes into a recipe means you can accurately track the calories of the recipe. Not only that, but measuring the ingredients by weight usually results in much better textures.

Another great reason to use a kitchen scale is the reliability. When you figure out the perfect measurements for a recipe, you can write it down so you achieve the same delicious baked good each time you make it.

Baking with scale measurements is much quicker and tidier than using cup measurements. You can measure your ingredients directly into the bowl rather than using cups. With cup measurements, you will need one for flour then another for milk and so on – you get through a lot of little appliances! A scale results in much less clean up because everything goes into the same bowl without the use of cups!

I know that a lot of recipes still use cup measurements and it can be annoying to constantly go back and forth between google and a recipe to find the conversions. The easiest way around this is by writing out the conversions once and sticking them to your fridge or cupboard. This way, you can always look at the conversions and easily adjust to fit the recipe.

3. Swap out high calorie ingredients

One of the easiest ways to cut down on calories that will work for almost ANY recipe, is by swapping out high calorie ingredients for low calorie alternatives. I have a free low calorie baking cheat sheet that is super helpful for making these swaps.

An easy way to go about this is by finding a few staple low calorie ingredients for baking and making a note of their conversions. For example, when a recipe calls for butter and/or eggs, you can replace it with applesauce. Applesauce is one of my favorite low calorie alternatives and works really well in most baked goods.

The easiest ingredients to substitute are:

• Sugar – Sugar is one of those ingredients that is just so high in calories and it is absolutely everywhere. This post on 0 calorie sugar alternatives is really helpful for picking a really good sweetener. For drinks, 0 calorie syrups are the way to go.
• Butter/oil – Butter and oil are really important ingredients in the vast majority of baked goods. They contain a lot of fat which helps keep baked goods moist and well structured. My favorite low calorie alternatives to butter and oil include low fat yogurt, applesauce and low fat cream cheese.
• Eggs – Another staple ingredient in most baked goods. Eggs can easily be replaced with applesauce. You can also use just the egg whites instead of the whole egg because the egg yolk is where most of the calories come from. Egg whites are actually very low in calories!
• Milk – Milk isn’t super high in calories but it is still nice to cut back on unnecessary calories. My favorite milk to bake with is unsweetened almond milk. It is insanely low in calories and still adds that creamy milk quality to baked goods!

4. Have staple recipes to fall back on

During a weight loss journey, it is inevitable to have sweet cravings every now and again. The one thing that separates a successful weight loss journey from all of the failed attempts prior, is how you deal with cravings.

I remember for the longest time trying to lose weight but being unable to control my cravings. If I wanted some ice cream, instead of having some ice cream to curb the craving, I would feel like I failed for eating some of the ice cream and just eat an entire tub. That would then lead to the ‘what’s the point anymore’ and then I would eat another 1000 calories worth of sugary treats to make myself feel better. This leads to a cycle of unsatisfied cravings followed by bingeing and gaining weight rather than losing weight.

Once I realized that I could eat a little ice cream without erasing all of my progress, things became so much easier! Once I started making low calorie recipes, I would tape a few favorites to my fridge so I would have easy access whenever I had a sweet craving.

It is really important to have a small list of go-to low calorie treats for days when you want to eat the entire kitchen. Find or make a few delicious treats you love and won’t get tired of, write the ingredients and the recipe on a post-it and stick it somewhere you can easily access next time you have a craving.

It is also really helpful to have a few quick and easy recipes that don’t require much work because who really wants to make an intricate, 30 ingredient dessert when they have a sugar craving? Definitely not me!

I hope this post has been a little helpful and motivating. You can easily enjoy all your favorite foods with a few adjustments and a little creativity! Happy baking!

Lots of love,

Veera 🙂