What do you do when you’re stuck at home AND stressed out? You “STRESS-BAKE!” Why? Because not only baking is tremendously soothing! It’s also cheap and it’s so easily accessible to everyone who has a kitchen, some baking ingredients and a few baking tools! But since baking doesn’t JUST mean baking: it also involves EATING what you’ve baked, it’s vitally important to make sure that you “stress-bake” healthfully!
The Cupcakes. A healthy variety! With the extra frosting. My favorite baking project!
Especially if you find yourself getting in the groove of it and have been doing it quit often!
After years of being a stay at home mom who is BOTH… Well – “at home” AND oftentimes stressed 🙂 I had to learn a few good techniques for stress-baking guiltlessly (i.e. without becoming “as big as a house”)! :)These tips are really easy. But trust me – they do work!
CHOOSE YOUR CHALLENGE!
No matter how healthy your desserts can be, too much of anything isn’t good for anyone!
To best approach this challenge it’s important to identify your biggest weakness!
If you’re someone whose biggest diet challenge is that you can never stop at one bite (or at one slice), then your best bet is to make that bite (or slice, or a few slices!) as healthy and low-calorie as possible!
Opting for lower-calorie, fruit based desserts such as literally any healthy meringue-based dessert or a dessert with yogurt as a main ingredient are both voluminous, satisfying, nutritious and low in sugar and calories!
At the same time if you find yourself craving the “ultimate treat” in a form of full-fat, full-sugar calorie overload… you better make sure to keep your portions reasonable!
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
BAKE SMALL
Because the whole idea of stress-baking is more about feeding your emotions rather than body – you do not need to bake a big batch! And even though it is tempting to bake a big batch of something – if you are going to be the only person eating it – it’s best to restrain yourself!
And also – if it feels like baking just a little bit is a “huge waste of time”, think about it this way: every time you bake something – you learn a thing or two! With that in mind you are not wasting your time on baking very little food! You’re investing this time into your learning experience! 🙂
STORE & FREEZE
Because if you do not have much time to bake but you still like enjoying home-made desserts making big batches of it is a good idea! And also you do not have to eat up the whole batch if you utilize your freezer!
Just make a freezer-friendly dessert like cookies, bars (those tend to freeze really well and they can be stacked really nicely in a squire container or a ziplock bag!) or quick breads! You can make as big of a batch as you can possibly fit in your oven – and then just leave only as much as you can manage eating fresh in the next few days without over-indulging! And… freeze the rest for later!
Finally you can also “meal-prep”: just make a big batch of cookie dough and bake the cookies only with the half of it and freeze the rest. You can also freeze the pie dough and also you can bake a few cake crusts and freeze them before frosting them! When you’re ready for a cake just take out the crusts and frost them then!
The Healthy Pinwheel Cookies are quite a project! But they come out so yummy and impressive!
SHARE!
Although it may not always be easy or possible to physically share a mealtime with your friends or extended family, you can always share your baked goodies or dessert with people who live near by if you do it delivery-style! The best part is that you don’t even need to personally hand it to them! Just leave your treats by their door and let them know it’s there!
Sharing your food doesn’t only carry all sorts of emotional benefits! It will cut the amount of dessert and the amount of calories between everyone enjoying it (thus making it less tempting to eat the whole batch!)
Cookies and bars tend to transport best! I especially like sharing impressively pretty cookies like these Healthy Blueberry Cookies or these Rugelach Cookies or these Healthy Blue Brownies!
…Because when you need to bust stress what can be better than receiving an honest compliment from someone you shared your baked goodies with?
So now that you know how to “stress bake” healthfully what will be your next project?
I’ll tell you a secret: mine won’t be baking at all! Tonight I’m making myself these Healthy Marshmallows! ‘Cause I like a BIG portion of dessert! Especially when I’m feeling kind-of stressed! 🙂
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