Food special: A Lighter Way to Bake in the Daily Mail
Lorraine has come up with an irresistible collection of sweet and savoury treats in her new book, A Lighter Way To Bake. We’re turning on the oven now!
Read the full article and discover more recipes on dailymail.co.uk.
What’s the big idea?
I was sitting alone one Sunday morning when it hit me. What if I could create a book of recipes that were lighter in fat, sugar and calories, but tasted just as good as naughty ones? Sounds easy, I thought.
And how easy was it?
My first challenge was to make a lighter Victoria sponge. I thought it would be a doddle, but 11 attempts later and with a pile of quasi sponge sandwiches covering my kitchen table, I thought it had beaten me. I genuinely felt despondent.
Why didn’t you just give up and have a slice of cake?
I hadn’t realised that as I approached the eleventh attempt, I had been getting close to the magic formula. The twelfth came out of the oven exactly as I’d envisaged it. Eureka! I had cracked it, and my journey to lighter baking began in earnest.
But doesn’t lighter mean less yummy?
Writing the recipes for this book was totally counterintuitive. When developing ‘normal’ recipes, the way to guarantee they’ll taste great is by loading them with full-fat butter and sugar. How on earth was I going to create lighter indulgences that still had you going back for more?
So what’s the secret?
I went to the supermarket and bought a stack of dairy products including cream cheese, crème fraîche, cottage cheese, etc (low-, full- and no-fat versions), and began decreasing the butter and substituting it with other dairy. Some cakes came out flat, some thin, but eventually I found an ingredient rhythm which enabled the bakes to work...
Read the full article and discover more recipes on dailymail.co.uk.
Petite filo quiche Lorraine (Pascale) with red onion, bacon & thyme
I first made a quiche at catering school, a large one with a sprinkling of bacon and veg. Baking Made Easy saw me take quiche to a whole new level with full-fat crème fraîche, cream and a whole host of other naughties. This trimmed-down version makes use of lower-fat alternatives and egg whites, and a little bit of mustard on the pastry boosts the flavour and gives a subtle and gentle hint of heat. They are lovely to eat warm and great for your lunchbox or picnic hamper.
MAKES 12 QUICHES
spray oil
1 red onion, finely sliced
150g (5oz) back bacon, trimmed of any fat and diced
leaves from 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
200g (7oz) half-fat crème fraîche
75ml (3fl oz) semi-skimmed milk
25g (1oz) Parmesan, finely grated
2 medium eggs
2 medium egg whites
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
41⁄2 sheets of filo pastry, defrosted
1 tbsp yellow mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper
TO FINISH
sprinkle of chopped fresh chives, to garnish
crisp green salad, to serve
● Preheat the oven to 180C (fan 160C), 350F, gas mark 4. Place
a baking sheet in the oven to heat up also. This will give extra bottom heat to the quiches so that the bases cook through and
are not soggy. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin with spray oil and
set aside.
● Spray a little oil into a large frying pan and gently cook the onion for 6–8 minutes until it just begins to soften, but not colour. Add the bacon and thyme and continue to cook gently for 3–4 minutes until the bacon is cooked through. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
● Next, whisk the crème fraîche, milk, Parmesan, whole eggs, egg whites, nutmeg and a little salt and pepper together well in a large jug and set aside.
● Lay out the four whole sheets of filo pastry on top of each other and cut them in half across the width. Then sit the extra half of filo on top of one of these stacks and cut each stack into quarters. I find scissors really handy to cut these out, but a sharp knife will do. You should now have lots of smaller filo pieces measuring about 12cm (41⁄2 in) square (36 in total).
● Line each hole of the muffin tin with three filo squares. I like to take a square at a time and press it into the hole, each one slightly staggered from the previous so the resulting pastry case edge looks like a kind of star. Make sure to push the pastry down so it is in the corners of each muffin hole. Keep any filo not being worked on under a lightly dampened tea towel so that it doesn’t dry out.
● Next, brush the base of each mini quiche with a little of the mustard (which adds great flavour and kick!). Divide the onion and bacon mixture among the cases and then carefully pour the creamy egg mixture over to as full as you can get it. Spray the exposed pastry with a little oil.
● Place in the oven on the heated baking sheet to bake for 30 minutes or until the egg mixture is just set and the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Sprinkle with the chopped chives and serve at once with a crisp green salad.
Skinny caffè latte butterfly cakes
Who said eating lighter means that you cannot eat cupcakes? Feast your eyes on these deliciously delectable morsels.
MAKES 12 CAKES
75g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened
100g (31⁄2 oz) caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1 medium egg white
2 tbsp low-fat Greek yogurt
150g (5oz) self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
seeds of 1 vanilla pod or
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
icing sugar, for dusting
FROSTING
200g (7oz) low-fat crème fraîche
50g (2oz) icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp Baileys The Original Irish Cream liqueur
● Preheat the oven to 180C (fan 160C), 350F, gas mark 4. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper muffin cases.
● Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl (or food mixer set with a beater) until well combined. Then beat in the eggs, egg white and Greek yogurt. The mixture will start to look, well, a bit curdled, but keep on beating it for a moment or two, and then add the flour, baking powder and vanilla extract or seeds. Blend the coffee granules with 1 tablespoon hot water and add to the mix also. Stir everything
together until it is combined. Pouring the mixture into a jug or using two spoons (or I like to use a mechanical ice-cream scoop), divide the mixture among the 12 cases.
● Bake in the oven for 20–25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean and the cakes feel springy to the touch. Once the cupcakes are cooked, remove them from the oven and leave to cool in the tray.
● Meanwhile, make the frosting. Simply mix together the crème fraîche, icing sugar and Irish Cream liqueur in a medium bowl, using as few stirs as possible. Cover and set aside in the fridge until ready to use.
● Once the cupcakes are cool, slice the top off each cake and cut the pieces in half down the centre to give two wings. Put a dollop of the frosting on top of each cake, then stick the two wings into
the frosting of each one, with the centre cut downwards and the underneath cut outwards. Arrange on a platter or cake stand, dust with icing sugar and serve.
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