Nutritionist by trade. Foodie at heart.
My coworker and I decided to embark on quite an ambitious project – we had obtained all nine different varieties of Becel margarine and in addition to taste testing them all, we decided to take it one step further and see how they performed in baking.We used a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe and substitutedContinue reading “Battle of the Becels Part 2: Do some perform better in baking than others?”
My coworkers and I were so shocked with the results of the butter vs. margarine taste test that we decided to take the margarine taste test to a whole other level. Seeing that margarine can taste and perform very similar to butter, we wanted to try the different types of Becel margarine (there are 9Continue reading “Battle of the Becels: Can you taste the difference?”
Another ‘convenience item’ that I decided to test out was cake mixes. Are cake mixes really so bad? I find them revolutionary – everything is pre mixed in a box and you just have to add eggs, oil and water. Brilliant! I also have a confession – for the longest time I believed that theContinue reading “From scratch versus cake mix: Devil’s Food Cake”
The original baking experiment that I was going to do with the pumpkin pies was frozen pie crust vs. home made pie crust. This was before I realized that canned pumpkin can be hard to find, hence the reason why this pumpkin pie baking experiment became a two-part series: Canned pumpkin vs. canned pumpkin pieContinue reading “From scratch versus frozen: Pie crusts”
I had been meaning to have a baking night at my place with a friend of mine. One of her favourite desserts is pumpkin pie, so with it being the Thanksgiving long weekend I figured what better time to make this dessert than this weekend. However, it turns out that canned pumpkin can be prettyContinue reading “A tale of two pies: Canned pumpkin versus pumpkin pie filling”
One of the baking experiments I have always wanted to do is to substitute artificial sweetener for sugar and see if how it affects the end product in baking. However, before going ahead with the baking experiment, I wanted to taste test each type of sweetener on its own. It will be interesting to seeContinue reading “Artificial sweeteners: Are they all created equal?”
This is a relatively new product out in the margarine market – Becel pro-activ. It’s a calorie-reduced margarine with plant sterols. So for people who are really health conscious, why not take the margarine instead of butter replacement one step further to calorie-reduced margarine with added plant sterols? The big question, however, is how doesContinue reading “Calorie-reduced margarines with plants sterols: Do they taste any good?”
So now I’ve tried substituting margarine for butter in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and shortbread cookies. Time for the ultimate test: butter vs. margarine straight up (i.e. spread on bread). There will be no other strong flavours and ingredients to compete with the flavour and texture – just each one on its own. For this tasteContinue reading “Butter versus margarine: Spread on bread”
With last week’s results from the butter vs. margarine: oatmeal chocolate chip cookie taste test, I decided to take the butter vs. margarine debate one step further. I would choose a cookie where there would be less flavours interfering with the buttery taste. What better cookie to choose than shortbread? I suspect that this cookie willContinue reading “Butter versus margarine: Shortbread cookies”