So the doctor firmly told you to cut back on fat in your diet. You want to be obedient but you love certain sweets. Perhaps Sun- sweet can make your life easier. New "Lighter Bake" is 100 percent fat-free and is not a synthetic product but is made from fruit. This butter and oil replacement sells for $2.39 for 14-ounce bottle. (Remember to refrigerate the bottle after opening.)
Nihla Lake (married, two children at home): "We decided to play it safe and stir up one of the recipes contained in the attached pamphlet. We did the oatmeal raisin cookies and took them to a family birthday party. The adults were impressed because of their `no-fatness' and moist chewiness. The kids were `ho-hum.' We're anxious to experiment with other old favorite recipes."Edyth Jensen (married, one daughter and two grandkids at home): "We tried this product in cookies and in cakes. The cookies turned out very flat and very chewy. They had to cool on the cookie sheet before we could remove them and then they stuck to the pan and I almost had to soak them off. In the cake, however, Lighter Bake made it moist and tasty. I probably won't buy this product again because it is expensive to use and regular applesauce works just as well if not better because it doesn't affect the flavor of the cookies so much."
Don Russell (married, five children at home, ages 6-16): "Sun-sweet's new product is billed as a butter and oil replacement. It's essentially a blend of plums, apples, dextrose and pectin. We made a batch of chocolate chip cookies with Lighter Bake and found them to be more chewy, tougher and sweeter than cookies made with traditional oils. We liked knowing these cookies didn't have a lot of oil in them, but they did have more than their fair share of sugar!"
Linda C. Tingey (single mother, two teenage boys at home): "My daughter-in-law, Charity, used Lighter Bake in a cake for a family gathering. She only had to use 1/16th of a cup plus 2 1/2 tablespoons to replace a third of a cup of oil. It was wonderful. This product makes your cakes very moist and at the same time you're eliminating fat. I had several people ask, `what did you put in this cake to make it so light and fluffy?'
"This idea isn't new. Utah school districts have been using fruit as a an oil substitute in their lunchrooms for quite a while. But bravo to Sunsweet for putting this product on the market.
"The bottle will go a long way and I'll definitely keep using Lighter Bake."
Rich Firmage (married, four children, oldest 12 years old): "This is an interesting idea. It's a shame it doesn't work. My wife made some chocolate chip cookies which are always really good. Her first response after making these cookies was `this stuff is gross.' The dough was dark, gooey and very unappealing. Cookie dough is usually a favorite of mine, but I wouldn't touch this this dough with a 10-foot pole. The cookies stuck to the pan like they were glued.
"It was hard to tell if they were done because they were so dark to begin with. They didn't taste the same because this stuff with made with apples and prunes. Lighter Bake will destroy your cookies but do wonders for your digestion. I want some fat in my cookies and this in the trash."
Conclusion: If your cholesterol level is such that you can eat cookie dough to your heart's content, pass this product by and go straight to butter. Those who need
to watch fat intake, however, rejoice! Our testers found cakes turned out wonderfully. Some cookie recipes seem to work better than others. If you are concerned about heart-healthy eating, you ought to give Lighter Bake a try.