Though I’m known for healthy cooking, I’ve got to be honest: my idea of healthy baking is simply to stick to whole ingredients that are organic and as unprocessed as possible.
Organic butter, check. Organic sugar or local honey, check. Organic all-purpose or whole wheat flour, check.
Rather than experiment with substitutes, I usually follow baking recipes as written, just choosing the best, most healthy versions of the ingredients called for. This holiday season, though, when I was baking more than usual, I decided to try something new: use higher-protein Greek-style yogurt in my baking.
At first, I substituted Greek-style yogurt in my baking as an attempt to balance our holiday diet. Yogurt is, after all one of our healthiest foods! It worked out so well, though, that it’s become part of my regular baking repertoire. I encourage you to give it a try—I have a feeling you’ll find yourself making the same decision that I’ve made.
To make it easier for you to start experimenting, here’s a quick reference substitute chart:
1 cup sour cream = 1 cup Greek-style yogurt
1 cup oil = ¾ cup Greek-style yogurt
1 cup butter = ¼ cup Greek-style yogurt + ½ cup butter
1 cup cream cheese = 1 cup Greek-style yogurt
1 cup buttermilk = 2/3 cup Greek-style yogurt + ¼ cup buttermilk
If you’d rather start with a tried and true recipe, give this Vanilla Cardamom Olive Oil Pound Cake or Blood Orange Yogurt Cake a try. When you’re sold—which you surely will be!—then you can branch out into adapting your own favorite recipes.
