Top Tips for Adapting Recipes to Suit Diabetes
Ever seen a recipe you would like to make but don’t know how to adapt it for diabetes? Registered dietitian and author of the fabulous cookbook NOSH (see below) passes on some expert advice on how to turn any recipe into one suitable for people with diabetes.
Tips for Adapting Baking Recipes
Of all the recipes to adapt, baking recipes are one of the hardest. Poorly developed recipes will result in products that are pale, have a heavy texture and are bland tasting. The overall aim of adapting a standard baking recipe is to make it:
(1) low in fat, particularly saturated fat
(2) low in sugar
(3) higher in fibre
(4) contain a good portion of nutritious ingredients like fruit, vegetables, nuts, wholegrains etc
(5) include some ingredients with a low glycaemic index (GI)
Here are some tips to get you started – all you need now is to start experimenting:
- With essential ingredients such as fat and sugar – don’t cut out – just cut back – and replace with healthier ingredients to compensate for their loss.
FAT
- Replace the butter with margarine or oil AND reduce the quantity. These are more heart friendly fats BUT they still provide similar amounts of calories as butter. Margarine works generally better for cakes, biscuits and scones than oil. Oil works well for muffins and loaves.
- Try to aim for no more than 6 grams of standard margarine or 10 grams of ‘light’ margarine per slice, muffin or biscuit. For example a cake that serves 10 should contain no more than 60 grams of standard margarine or 100g of reduced fat margarine.
- Mashed banana, stewed apple, pureed dates or prunes can help replace the loss of fat in baked products.
- Buttermilk (does not contain butter) helps tenderise products and provide moistness. It is great for muffins, scones and loaves.
SUGAR
- Some sugar is permissible for most people with diabetes. Sugar doesn’t just provide sweetness in baked products - it also helps create a tender product, causes browning and in biscuits it provides a crispness. A suggested safe ratio is ½ cup of sugar per 2 cups of dry ingredients providing the dry ingredients contain some fibre. Most cakes and biscuits require this minimum amount of sugar to work. Muffins, loaves and scones generally work with lower quantities.
- Use fruit (dried, stewed, fresh) to add sweetness, moistness and to make the product more nutritious. If more sweetness is required add in some artificial sweetener. Choose one that isn’t destroyed with heat such as: Sucaryl, Sugromax, Splenda. Artificial sweeteners only provide sweetness and will not help with tenderness, browning or crispness.
FIBRE
- Replace half of the white flour with a higher fibre alternative such as wholemeal flour or oatbran or one third of it with rolled oats or wheatbran. You may need to increase the liquid to compensate.
- Add extra baking powder to cake, muffin, loaf and scone recipes. This will help compensate for the addition of fibre which can make products heavy. A suggested ratio is 2 teaspoons per cup of flour.
- Cakes work well with adding in an extra egg white/s and beating the egg white/s until thick and foamy. Fold these in with the dry ingredients. This will create a lighter cake.
METHODS/TECHNIQUES
- With cake, muffin, scone and loaf recipes be light handed when you mix in the dry ingredients – fold them gently through. Being too rough will result in a tough and poorly risen product.
If all else fails, purchase a recipe book which has already done the work for you. Look for recipe books that not only change the type of fat, but use it in small amounts, use only small amounts of sugar (not just replaced the sugar with raw sugar or honey), that some of the white flour is replaced with some higher fibre ingredients and the recipe includes some lower GI ingredients.
While all care is taken to ensure information provided to our readers is reliable, Roche Diagnostics cannot be held responsible for errors, ommissions or unexpected outcomes for individuals following advice provided. Please consult your healthcare professional for individual advice.