Healthy Butter Substitute | Tips For Cooking to Lower Cholesterol

Try substituting butter and margarine with a fruit puree.  Prune puree is one particularly popular alternative but try using applesauce and apricots as substitutes. 

What has the chefs who specialize in nutrition so excited about using prune puree is the significant difference in fat grams as well as calories.  One cup of prune puree has 407 calories and one gram of fat.  One cup of butter has 1,600 calories and 182 grams of fat.  One cup of oil has 1,944 calories and 218 grams of fat.  You can see now why bakers are excited about prunes!

Prunes also contain large amounts of pectin which helps hold in the air bubbles that make baked good rise.  They also have large amounts of sorbitol, a sugar alcohol, which helps keep baked goods moist and gives them the flaky, tender taste of shortening or butter.

The only drawback to using fruits like applesauce and apricots as fat substitutes is that baked goods tend to become soggy and moldy within a day or two so plan quantities accordingly. 

Also, when baking with substitutes for fat, use cake flour instead of regular all purpose flour.  It will keep the baked good tender. 

Don’t over bake your fat reduced recipes as they do tend to dry out quicker than traditional recipes that call for butter or oil.