5 unusual ingredients to elevate your baking game
This is a collaborative post
Bored of making the same Victoria sponge for special events? Tasked with baking for a health-conscious friend or family member with dietary requirements? Whatever is prompting you to branch out from your comfort zone, get creative with these five unusual ingredients to elevate your baking game.
- Matcha
Rich in antioxidants and believed to have many benefits such as relieving stress, matcha is one of the latest trends for wellness enthusiasts.
Matcha is traditionally made into tea, but you’d be mistaken for thinking it’s just for sipping! Add loose culinary-grade matcha tea powder to your bakes for a zing of green colour, a superfood boost, and an earthy flavour that pairs well with sweet ingredients like vanilla, ginger and chocolate.
- Beetroot
Another way to literally brighten up your bakes is with beetroot. This root vegetable has a vivid purple hue and acts as a natural pink dye to your mixture. Beetroot is also bursting with essential nutrients including folate, manganese, potassium, iron and vitamin C.
Beetroot is moist which helps to reduce or remove the need for fats like oil and butter in your bakes. It also has a subtle sweetness that will blend well with your other flavours.
- Sweet potato
Whether you’re enhancing the spices of a seasonal bake or trying to create a certain texture, sweet potatoes are fantastic alternative cake ingredients. Everything from their flavour to their starchiness lends them to baking, and they’re high in fibre to boot.
You can grate the potatoes into a mixture to achieve a light and fluffy texture similar to that of carrot cake. Alternatively, roast and mash your sweet potatoes for an indulgent fudginess that suits dense bakes like brownies.
- Applesauce
Baking for people who are counting the calories can be challenging, especially as most traditional recipes incorporate butter and oil and rely on sugar for sweetness. In these situations, applesauce may prove to be the magic replacement ingredient you need.
Recipes that call for oil or melted butter will have the best results with an applesauce switch. Bakes that require solid butter won’t be able to take too much moisture without coming out tough.
- Avocado
Searching for a way to make your favourite bakes suitable for vegans or lactose intolerants? Try swapping butter for avocados.
These fruits are also high in fat so they help to create an equally creamy texture, and they have a slightly sweet taste that will only serve to enhance the flavour of your bake. Avocados are also much healthier than dairy butter, lowering the calorie count and upping the nutritional benefits of your recipe.
So, get your mixing bowl out and give these alternative ingredients a go. There might be a new favourite hidden among them!
