It's All About the Filling
The first pumpkin pie of the holiday season is sitting in my refrigerator!
Sure, pumpkin pie doesn't have the sweetness of a fruit pie or the richness of a chocolate cream pie going for it, but the pumpkin and the spice and the custard texture...it works!
I've written about piecrust before, because frankly, that's where a lot of the calories and saturated fat are coming from with many a pie slice. But let's chat about the filling for a moment shall we?
With a piecrust, the ingredient in question is the fatty ingredient like shortening or butter. With a pie filling we've got two things to look out for; sugar AND fatty ingredients. Many pie filling recipes call for a cup of sugar and that's 16 tablespoons of sugar divided by 8 servings = about 100 calories from sugar per serving with 25 grams of carbohydrate (just for the sugar in a serving of the filling). You can cut the calories from sugar in half by either using half as much sugar called for (in a fruit pie filling this usually works out just fine) or by substituting half of the sugar with Splenda. Some people are going to be more fine with this than others.
Then there's butter. One sweet potato pie recipe I looked at called for a cube (1/2 cup) of butter. That's a tablespoon of butter per serving or about 100 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of which are saturated fat) per serving. You can usually trim this back to 2 tablespoons and add in a few tablespoons of orange juice or rum or even maple syrup (especially if you've cut the sugar in half). Some fruit pie fillings don't call for butter in the filling but it calls for dotting the top of the filling with several tablespoons of butter. This is, in a word-unnecessary. Don't dot and save yourself the extra fuss and calories.
Creamy or custard pie filling usually call for the obligatory evaporated milk, not to be confused with sweetened condensed milk which also pops up in many pie filling recipes. You can always use evaporated skimmed milk in the recipes that call for evaporated milk and you can always use fat free sweetened condensed milk in the recipes that call for sweetened condensed. Cream cheese is another creamy pie filling ingredient that can be replaced with a fat free variety but I find the color and texture of fat free cream cheese rather unappetizing, so you may want to go for the low fat or light cream cheese options. If a pie filling calls for an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, it will shave off about 37 calories, 5.5 grams of fat (3 grams of which are saturated) per serving (when 8 servings per pie) if you use light cream cheese instead.
Stay tuned for... Pie Toppings! You didn't think I was going to stop at filling, did you?
~~Elaine
Related Topics: Stuff the Turkey, Not Yourself, Thanksgiving: Last Minute Recipe Tips
Technorati Tags: pie, piefilling, pumpkinpie, baking, holidaybaking, holidays
Sure, pumpkin pie doesn't have the sweetness of a fruit pie or the richness of a chocolate cream pie going for it, but the pumpkin and the spice and the custard texture...it works!
I've written about piecrust before, because frankly, that's where a lot of the calories and saturated fat are coming from with many a pie slice. But let's chat about the filling for a moment shall we?
With a piecrust, the ingredient in question is the fatty ingredient like shortening or butter. With a pie filling we've got two things to look out for; sugar AND fatty ingredients. Many pie filling recipes call for a cup of sugar and that's 16 tablespoons of sugar divided by 8 servings = about 100 calories from sugar per serving with 25 grams of carbohydrate (just for the sugar in a serving of the filling). You can cut the calories from sugar in half by either using half as much sugar called for (in a fruit pie filling this usually works out just fine) or by substituting half of the sugar with Splenda. Some people are going to be more fine with this than others.
Then there's butter. One sweet potato pie recipe I looked at called for a cube (1/2 cup) of butter. That's a tablespoon of butter per serving or about 100 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of which are saturated fat) per serving. You can usually trim this back to 2 tablespoons and add in a few tablespoons of orange juice or rum or even maple syrup (especially if you've cut the sugar in half). Some fruit pie fillings don't call for butter in the filling but it calls for dotting the top of the filling with several tablespoons of butter. This is, in a word-unnecessary. Don't dot and save yourself the extra fuss and calories.
Creamy or custard pie filling usually call for the obligatory evaporated milk, not to be confused with sweetened condensed milk which also pops up in many pie filling recipes. You can always use evaporated skimmed milk in the recipes that call for evaporated milk and you can always use fat free sweetened condensed milk in the recipes that call for sweetened condensed. Cream cheese is another creamy pie filling ingredient that can be replaced with a fat free variety but I find the color and texture of fat free cream cheese rather unappetizing, so you may want to go for the low fat or light cream cheese options. If a pie filling calls for an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, it will shave off about 37 calories, 5.5 grams of fat (3 grams of which are saturated) per serving (when 8 servings per pie) if you use light cream cheese instead.
Stay tuned for... Pie Toppings! You didn't think I was going to stop at filling, did you?
~~Elaine
Related Topics: Stuff the Turkey, Not Yourself, Thanksgiving: Last Minute Recipe Tips
Technorati Tags: pie, piefilling, pumpkinpie, baking, holidaybaking, holidays
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