Light and Easy Baking

by Beatrice Ojakangas

Here is a diverse and surprising collection of mouth-watering, low-fat treats from the baker who brought happy, healthy eaters the wonderful Light Muffins. Replacing fatty shortenings with fruit... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517209624
• ISBN13: 9780517209622
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Gramercy Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Fun, Tasty, Easy to follow, and Good for you

With simple instructions, a practical approach to baking, and goods that reliably turn out well, there's a lot to recommend Beatrice Ojakangas' Light and Easy Baking. As a newcomer to baking, I've had my copy for two months now, and continued success with recipe after recipe has spurred me to try at least a dozen items from muffins to cheesecake. Ojakangas' basic philosophy is to take recipes that were already pretty low in fat, and make them lower *without* adding artifical ingredients or sweeteners. Hence, the selection in the book skews more towards unique and healthy items than "favorites" such as brownies and cakes, although both are certainly present. For those favorites NOT present, Ojakangas offers a good compromise; The book has an (short - less than 10 page) introduction explaining her strategies, and each recipe has a paragraph or two that discusses what was changed to make the recipe healthier. That way, a savvy reader can make their own healthy modifications to a favorite. For those who just like to follow recipes, the ones in this book cover a pretty wide range of baked goods (and not just desserts). I would have preferred fewer breads and more breakfast items and bar candies, but no matter which type of baked good is your favorite, there's certainly enough in each to keep a baker trying new things for quite a while. Some may be turned off by the number of 'nonstandard' ingredients required by this book; things like wheat or cake flour, eqq whites, raisins, nonfat plain yogurt, and nonfat sour cream are not unusual to see in the list of ingredients. Almost all CAN be found at a normal grocery store, though, and all are required consistently enough that the cupboards won't fill with one-recipe items, although expiration can be a problem on the dairy sometimes. Nutrition info is provided for each recipe, giving calories, grams of fats, grams of fiber, and percentages. I would have loved to see total grams of sugar or a protein/carb breakdown, but the info provided is enough for most calorie-counters or Weight Watchers. Overall, this is a great book to follow if you're open-minded about what you'll try, or curious to try someone else's philosophies for cutting back on fat. The recipes are easy to follow and turn out well (indistinguishable from normal-fat baking, in most cases), and something that's reduced-fat without tasting like it is always a hit.

Delicious Recipes

I purchased this book from the sale shelves at my university bookstore for a P.E. project on healthy foods. It is well-written and contains nutrition information (no vitamins and minerals) and helpful hints. Every recipe I've tried from this book has turned out to be delicious. As the previous reviewer mentioned, the author does not sacrifice taste and texture to achieve the low-fat (<30% calories from fat) designation. This is one of my favorite recipe books.

Great Addition to the Healthy Bookshelf

Having been an avid foodie and snobbish dessert baker for the last 10 years, I generally ignore both foods and cookbooks that are labeled "light." However, my vanity and aging metabolism have recently convinced me to foray into the realm of healthy and moderate cooking and I've purchased a dozen or so such cookbooks in the last few months. Beatrice Ojakangas is an excellent baker and teacher (she was featured in "Baking with Julia") and this book is a great addition to my personal collection. The author follows a really reasonable approach of presenting recipes that are either intrinsically light or which can be lightened without sacrificing overall appeal. This book doesn't strive to present lowfat versions of rich desserts that are better left alone. Nor does it use any strange artificial ingredients. What it does do is provide some top-notch recipes that satisfy my most common sweet-tooth cravings: for cake, cookies, something chocolatey, etc. This book won't be a disappointment!

Low Fat and Tasty

This has become my main cookbook for baking. When the breads, cakes, cookies, pies etc. look and taste good with the added advantage of lower calories why go elsewhere?