Low-fat cookies use healthier fats and less fatty ingredients to preserve the flavor and texture of traditional cookies. American biscuits use shortening for richness, while low-fat cookies use healthier oils or substitute ingredients like cottage cheese or yogurt. Low-fat cookie recipes are available, as well as commercial options.
Low-fat cookies are made using recipes that call for smaller amounts of fatty ingredients and typically use healthier fats instead of less healthy fats. Typical biscuits prepared in the American style are made with a mixture of butter, buttermilk and shortening or vegetable shortening. Recipes for making low-fat cookies try to preserve the rich flavor of these cookies, but change the mix of fats involved in the baking process. In some areas of the world, particularly the British Isles, low-fat biscuits are a variety of sweetened baked goods that are often eaten with tea. Both the American and British varieties of these low-fat foods are often made by home bakers, and there are some commercial versions as well.
American biscuits are normally made with a simple dough of flour, fat, salt, yeast and milk or water. Cookie recipes typically call for a considerable amount of fat solids to be cut into the dough before adding liquids. This shortening gives American biscuits a rich flavor and leaves them delicate and flaky. Cookies can simply be made without the shortening and will continue to rise, but the flavor and texture of such baked goods will suffer.
A more common method of making low-fat cookies retains the character of the original but involves the use of healthier fats. Oils, such as olive or canola oil, can be used in place of some of the butter or lard called for in a cookie recipe. While this process doesn’t technically reduce the overall level of fat in a batch of cookies, it does reduce the level of unhealthy fats and replace those unhealthy saturated fats with much healthier unsaturated fats, which are better for the body.
Another approach to making low-fat cookies involves using substitute ingredients that preserve the characteristics of the finished cookies but achieve them using different types of food chemistry. Cottage cheese and yogurt can both be used in place of a healthy dose of butter in a typical cookie recipe. These dairy products still provide some fat and also preserve the soft, moist character of the finished biscuits.
Many cooks choose to locate and use low-fat cookie recipes that are readily available. Cooks in a hurry have other options too. Refrigerated low-fat cookie dough is often commercially available, and many manufacturers produce mixes designed specifically for use in low-fat cookie baking. Low-fat versions of British biscuit-type biscuits are also readily available.
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