How to Cut the Fat in Homemade Candy

Homemade candy is so much better than anything you'll find in the store. Best of all, you have control of what goes in it. This means you have the option to cut the fat. How can you do that without affecting the taste or texture? It's all about knowing which ingredients to use. The following tips will help you cut fat from some of the most popular types of homemade candy.

Use Reduced Fat Peanut Butter

When making a recipe like buckeyes, it doesn't matter if you use reduced fat peanut butter. You're not going to affect the taste or texture with this easy substitute. But, you do need to spend some time finding the right peanut butter. You may need to try several brands before you find one that tastes as good as the regular version. You will however save around 32 grams of fat per cup of peanut butter making this easy switch.

Skip the Shortening

Many recipes call for two tablespoons of shortening to be added to a 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips to create a coating for your candy. A two tablespoon serving of shortening has 24 grams of fat. An alternative to shortening is paraffin wax. This type of wax is used by many chocolatiers and gives shine and texture to a chocolate coating without any fat or calories. The reason being is that paraffin wax in non-digestible so it passed right through the system.

Opt for Dried Fruit Instead of Nuts

If you're making a chocolate bark or a candy center that you would normally add nuts too, try adding chopped dried fruit instead. Dried cranberries, blueberries, cherries and even strawberries make a wonderful addition to homemade candy. Best of all, you'll be saving a ton of fat in your recipe. One cup of dried cranberries has less than 2 grams of fat. The same amount of chopped walnuts has 80 grams of fat. While walnuts do contain healthy fat, that's still a lot of fat, especially compared to dried fruit.

Roll Truffles in Powdered Sugar

Cocoa powder is by far the most traditional coating for homemade truffles, but a cup of cocoa powder has over 11 grams of fat. The same amount of powdered sugar has around 0.10 of a gram of fat. While each truffle will be surrounded in a very small amount of coating, this still saves a lot of fat from your recipe.

Sources:

http://www.nbpco.net/paraffin%20wax.htm