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When making substitutions for fat and processed sugar during baking are they a one to one ratio? What are your tips? I know you do not use oil. What are your favorite fat substitutions etc?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

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This event was on October 8, 2024

Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Nolan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Mary Gerstein

When making substitutions for fat and processed sugar during baking are they a one to one ratio? What are your tips? I know you do not use oil. What are your favorite fat substitutions etc?

Answer

So I think that you follow the recipe as it is in a cookbook. If it calls for a quarter of a cup of oil, you're going to use a quarter of a cup of unsweetened applesauce. The ratio is exactly the same. If it called for a half a cup of oil, you would use a qua, a half, half a cup of a mashed sweet potato. Um, you've also got bananas. So the ratios I find stay the same. However, again, it depends on the flour or grain that you are using. So a lot of it, going back to what Fran said, comes to um, how comfortable you are translating a recipe and what it looks like and what it's texture is like and how well that it cooks. And are you cooking it in a silicone pan? Are you using a liner? Are you putting it in um, a loaf pan and using parchment paper that's fit well because your parchment paper should fit well into any, uh, nine by nine baking pan or whatever baking pan that you use so that things can cook evenly and aerate well.

Char Nolan

Chef Instructor

Char Nolan is a serious crusader for plant-based education, armed with a degree in public health from Philadelphia’s Temple University. She teaches nutrition and plant-based cooking throughout Philadelphia, and in many underserved communities. Char holds a certificate in plant-based nutrition from eCornell and completed Rouxbe’s Plant-Based Professional Certification course in 2015. In 2019, Char completed post-graduate course work in social media marketing at the University of the Arts. When she is not cooking or teaching, she manages social media accounts for several plant-based influencers. Char prides herself on learning everything she knows about cooking from growing up in her grandparents’ Italian restaurant. Her favorite vegetables are Brussels sprouts and kale, of course. Char originally hails from Queens, NY, but has lived in Philadelphia most of her adult life. She is a former Peace Corps Volunteer.