With rising consciousness about nutrition, low-calorie bakes seem to be gradually filling up space on bakers' shelves.
Bakers ranging from topnotch stores to smaller home-based ones are serving up low calorie products tailored to suit the taste buds of everyone, including fitness freaks as well as those with health concerns.
Chef Nitin Upadhyay, who recently gave a makeover to the confectionery at The Suryaa hotel, has focused on fresh bakes with inclusion of low-calorie and sugar free bakery.
The hotel's culinary showcase, Ssence, includes items like oat peach crumble served with details of each ingredient and its quantity jotted on a display board. This, says the hotel enables a customer to make a choice suitable for their diets.
"We have focused on fresh variety. Instead of spending our time in decoration, we have utilised it to do fresh desserts. People can see their cake being baked and get its essence. We do sugar-free cakes on demand as well, and some desserts can even be customised, like dessert at the crepe station," says Upadhyay.
He also points out that seasonal fresh fruit tarts and special 'essence' fruit salad also makes a presence felt on the dessert menu.
Besides low-cal bakes, Upadhyay, with an experience of 24 years as a patissier has included some of global classics like Nanaimo bars, a Canadian traditional sweet delicacy.
Nivedita S Bhansali, a Delhi-based home baker and owner of Cocoa Cult,a startup venture, also acknowledges the need for healthy bakery products.
Bhansali does a variety of real fruit muffins, gingerbread muffins, pumpkin and pomegranate muffins, squash muffins, cinnamon raisin cake, flax seeds and apple muffins.
And for the chocoholic, she also bakes healthy chocolate chip whole wheat muffins. Banana walnut bread, honey-oat muffin, and poppy seed and herb buns are some other products offered by her startup.
"Instead of using artificial sweeteners, I prefer natural ones like honey. I avoid using sugar-free, unless and until the customer especially orders for one. I implement simple methods to make my bakes healthier, like substituting refined flour with oats and bran," says Bhansali.
Bhansali also does oat and whole wheat pancakes. "I start it on a pan and finish it up in a oven," says the baker.
She claims that her pumpkin and pomegranate muffins are a good source of energy, while her squash muffins are good for diabetes.
