Bakeries go healthy with low calorie desserts

Gone are the days when sweet indulgence was equated to consuming calories and putting on weight as a number of gourmet dessert stores across the city are catering to the increasing demand for organic alternatives in desserts.


With treats like low-fat peach cobblers, brown sugar balsamic sauces and fresh fruit smoothie pops, the food community is innovating with recipes.


"The first thing which comes to mind when we say dessert is a lot of calories. But the food community is working to make it healthier as the younger generation is highly health conscious. Dessert is something we all love, even without any reason and occasion, but people's choices are changing  with the younger generation going for organic food," says Kasturi Roy, Editor of Eat Treat, a city-based bakery. 

She says the shift has been conspicuous in choices - from deep-fried to shallow fried, sugar to organic sweeteners.  "Instead of deep fried, they are opting for shallow fried or other ways to make it less harmful. And instead of high in terms of calories, people are going for either sugarless or other sweeteners like honey," she says. 


To expand the reach of their products, the patisserie recently launched an online portal to deliver cakes, cookies, breads and everything baked and sweet at their customers' doorsteps.

 "The main idea behind this concept was the demand for good and healthy desserts. We have brought together some 30 bakers from across Delhi to serve people's healthy needs. "People look for places where they can get good and healthy bakery products. There are home bakers but there are a lot of barriers between a home baker and his/her customers. We are trying to bring both closer," says Roy.
 

Smoothie Factory, which has several outlets across the city, is using fresh fruits, coconut milk and multi-grain flour to ensure minimum calorie intake by its customers.  They also have nutritional substitutes like 'whey protein', 'fat burners', 'women and men vitamins' for turbinado sugar (made from pure cane extracts) in their meals, free of cost.


 "We try to make our food items, particularly the beverages and desserts low on calories. Generally, restaurants use syrups but we avoid that. We have smoothies, which are made up of real fruits.


 "We do not add any artificial flavours or even sugar. If we have to add any kind of sweetener, we go for honey. Even for our waffles, we use multi-grain flour. Also, they are egg-less," says Arjun Khera, owner of Smoothie Factory.   Hwealth Cafe in Defence Colony here too uses whole wheat, brown rice, yoghurt and natural sweeteners and to cut down on calories.


 "People are more health conscious nowadays, so in order to meet their demands, we are also going for healthier options. We do not use oil, butter or ghee for anything we cook.  "Instead we use yoghurt, whole wheat grain is used in place of flour. Our cakes and smoothies also use natural sweeteners like honey to add to the health factor," says Anand, who is in-charge of the city branch of Hwealth Cafe.

• bakeries
• desserts
• low-calories