this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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It is science (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

My wife's family is extremely health conscious and typically eats like rabbits. There's not a dish they have encountered that couldn't be "improved" with a metric fuck ton of broccoli, kale, onions, zucchini, etc. But they also love brownies. It is typically their only indulgence at family get togethers.

But instead of using eggs and oil in the mix like it calls for, they substitute those evil fats with applesauce instead. It kind of sort of works from a textural standpoint, but it definitely still tastes vaguely of applesauce which is not super desirable in a chocolate brownie. Ostensibly the idea is to make it "healthier" and lower calorie. But given all the sugar and other carbs in the batter (including the added sugar from the apples) the calorie difference is negligible but the end result is not the same at all. It feels like they missed the point and messed up the brownies for no reason at all. Doesn't stop them from calling them "healthy brownies" though. Stretching the definition of "healthy" reeeeaaaal far.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 57 minutes ago

To quote The Good Place:

There's something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so you can have more of it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

Suggest to them to use pureed pumpkin instead. My wife does that and I can barely tell.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

If anything, the chocolate chips are healthier than the blueberries, since chocolate has more antioxidants than blueberries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 minutes ago

Id argue blueberries healthier because of the fibre

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Spoiler: Those usually are not blueberries, they are sugar beets.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

In the 1990s when muffins were a craze in the USA my neighbor, a vegan food scientist, kept wondering how anyone thought cake was acceptable for breakfast. I never thought of it as cake until I made a batch and then made a cake and realized they were essentially identical processes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

Brought to you by the same people who say donuts are acceptable breakfast

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

How is cake unacceptable for breakfast?

I mean, even a vegan has to appreciate the power of cake.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 34 minutes ago

Deep fried cake covered in sugar is the quintessential American breakfast food.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

It’s a ton of fat and sugars with no added nutritional benefit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 minutes ago

Have you tried adding blueberries to it, they are an anti oxident

[–] [email protected] 4 points 48 minutes ago

If you can digest it then it's food, the chemical furnace demands more fuel.

Devoured MRE wrapper included

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

But what if we flatten the cake and fry it in butter instead of baking it? Surely that would be healthy, right?

Hang on. It's a little bland. I'd better pile more butter and liquified sugar on top.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It's perfect. Sweet, savory, pan fried cake.

Panfriedcake. That's what we'll call it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 48 minutes ago

Those are called pancrepes I think

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Pro tip for baking modern American recipes is you can cut about 1/3 of the sugar no problem, up to 1/2 on some recipes. Bran goes really well with blueberries. The blueberry muffins I make are basically lightly sweetened wheat bread and they slap. Muffins are a quick bread but somewhere along the line people wanted to lie to themselves and eat cupcakes while pretending they're still muffins

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

muffins are essentially cake in most formations. Cake, unlike many baked goods, is one where making massive changes is often ill advised as the chemistry of cakes is a lot more delicate than say bread or cookies. Removing 1/3 of the sugar in a cake/muffin recipe will lead to a tougher and drier muffin than one that has the recommended sugar amount.

Rather than remove large amounts of sugars it is better to find one that was created to not need the sugar to begin with

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It may be semantics but I do not consider muffins to be cake, that would make it a cupcake. Muffins are closer to quick bread to the point where any quick bread recipes I have tried work as muffins with no changes to ingredients only cooking time. For sure if you cut too much sugar out of something you lose structure but that's why I specified American recipes. They generally have way more sugar than what's necessary for structure and there's a lot of wiggle room with how much you can take out

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Cake is made from a sweetened batter. Muffins are made from a sweetened batter. Bread is made from dough. Dough has a lower fat/moisture content to it than batter.

Your quick bread substitutions are making something closer to rolls than muffins. Im sure your wheat roll equivalent to blueberry muffins are tasty but they are going to have a radically consistency than a traditional batter based muffin. Muffins are not quick breads.

Out of curiosity are you vegan?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Quick bread isn't the same as bread... Although I am seeing that cakes can be considered a type of quick bread so again I think this might largely be related to semantics. Things like banana bread, corn bread, biscuits, zucchini bread, are all quick breads that work as muffins and can have greatly reduced sugar without damaging their structure. The wheat and bran blueberry muffins I make are similar to sweetened wheat bread in flavor but texturally they're like a dense muffin. I'm not using gluten and yeast for the structure they use other leavening agents which is why they're a quick bread. My substitutions are: Less sugar, use whole wheat flour, sub some flour with bran and wheat germ. No I don't have any dietary restrictions

Edit to add: Also muffins don't have to be sweet like at all. There are plenty of savory muffin recipes that have little to no sugar, because they're a type of quick bread not specifically cake

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

This isn’t semantics. If you remove sugar you chemically alter the structure of the good. They will be tougher as a result.

The “quickbreads” you list are all batters. Try finding a dough based bread that becomes a muffin.

Again, I ask if you are vegan/plant based diet. Im not looking to engage with you on the morality. I have just noticed over the course if my time baking many vegans maintain their changes would make a similar product or an identical one when the science does not back that claim.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I already said that I don't have dietary restrictions also biscuits are typically referred to as being made with biscuit dough, not biscuit batter (at least where I'm from). I think discussing the differences between a dough and a batter in this context though is straying too far from what we're actually talking about so I don't particularly want to get into that.

I don't understand why you're putting quick bread in quotes so I'm asking sincerely do you not know what I mean when I say quick bread? As in something that's "leavened with a chemical agent rather than a biological one" such as baking soda/powder instead of yeast? Because this includes cake (and brownies and cookies even), I will change my case to be more like: Most people I've met in the US aren't wrong when they say they like muffins but it would be more specific to say they want cupcakes. In my opinion, we often put enough sugar into the muffins to cross the line into cupcake territory. Since they're both quick breads I'd argue cupcakes are muffins but not all muffins are cupcakes.

It's like my roommate kept telling me they like pancakes and so I'd make pancakes and they didn't like them because they were too thick. By the time I had thinned the recipe down enough for their liking I was actually making crepes, which are a type of pancake. They weren't wrong by saying they like pancakes but they would have been better off just admitting they actually like crepes and not what is generally thought of when someone says pancake.

I'm not trying to say that if you reduce sugar it is unchanged. I am saying that quick breads are very lenient with how much sugar can go in them while still maintaining good mouth feel, especially when the recipe already has a considerable amount of sugar as do many recipes that cater to modern US sugar addiction.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Im sorry I missed the bit about dietary restrictions.

cupcakes and muffins have similar sugar contents, are both made with identical procedures and ratios of ingredients. That is why they are the same. Cupcakes are cake batter poured into a different sized baking tin.

And Im saying by removing sugar you are going to change the consistency of the product significantly. All that sugar isn’t there just for taste as sugar also retains moisture in baked goods. There are always negative consequences to “just removing sugar” and you will be better off finding a recipe that was formulated to have less sugar.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

My wife .... a salad is healthy

Goes on to make a salad fit for a serving of four people filled with ranch dressing, cheese, bacon and nuts.

I love her dearly but she absolutely refuses to admit to a smaller salad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 32 minutes ago

The lady over here: I must buy the thinnest sliced cheese permissible by physics. Also my tea shall be served in a bucket with 3 cups of honey stirred in.

We have all been damaged by the world in some way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago

I also make fat girl on a diet salads, but I am aware of what I am doing with no illusions about how healthy it is.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

It's ok, I believe chocolate also has antioxidants so it's healthy too!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

Especially if paired with red wine

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure chocolate might have some caffeine too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

That's why I make my coffee as mocha, it's a health drink!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Double healthy!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Muffins are cake. I don't eat cake except on special occasions. I think this is a pretty good rule.

[–] eksb 7 points 4 hours ago

Breakfast is a special occasion though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

I want you to put the same number of blueberries into each muffin.

Do you know how long that will take?

I don't care, just do it.