Reducing the fat & sugar content in cakes etc

[brazen20au]

you can replace up to half the sugar and oil/butter in a cake with apple sauce

make the apple sauce by filling the thermomix with cored & quartered apples (can also use a few pears if they are overripe). add about 100g or so of water. cook for 7-10 mins at 90' speed 4.

I freeze it in small portions, around 150-180g so it's ready to go

[I Love Bimby!]

That's such a great tip!  If only I had seen it this morning - threw out 3 over ripe pears today 

[brazen20au]

ooops!

i have tried it in biscuits / cookies too but you definitely can't replace half - it does make them a lot drier so doesn't work as well for cookies as cakes.

it works really well in high sugar / fat cakes like my whole orange cake 

[Rowyfo]

Should you peel the fruit? Does leaving the skins on make it revolting?

My daughter loves to steal apples and eat half of them, it would be good not to waste the other half

[brazen20au]

leave the skins on, they basically dissolve and yes, we have half eaten apple syndrome in our house too 

[Thermomixer]

You could probably leave cores in for some of the recipes - if you blitz on speed 10 then you would certainly not notice in the carrot cake for example.  The core has lots of pectin to help set/stabilise.   Especially worth trying for the half apple syndrome.

[brazen20au]

i forgot the blitzing at the end, just noticed it in paul's recipe. i think i usually do it 

[judydawn]

If you just want to stew apples (or other seasonal fruit) for an chunky apple pie for example, is there a recipe in any of the books for stewing fruit.  Had a quick look and couldn't see anything.

[Thermomixer]

Haven't seen any, but think that it would be a job for reverse with the butterfly.

[cookie1]

Judy, I made some stewed apple the other night. I peeled and cored the apples and cut them into quarters. I added a bit of raw sugar and a small slurp of water. When I put them on to cook (think I used 100 degrees) they wouldn't rotate so I turbo'ed them a couple of times just to break them up a bit. I'm sorry I can't remember how long I cooked them, I just did a short time and kept checking. They were quite liquidy so I added a couple of spoons of pysillium husks to thicken them. I saw that hint in the Vegetarian book. There is an unusual apple pie recipe in there that I must try.

[judydawn]

And they were still chunky Cookie1?