Budget Baking Substitutionsby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 05 Aug 2007 06:44 AM Baking your own meals and snacks are a really great way to save money. But sometimes you just don't have everything you need available. Do you sometimes find yourself short some weeks on pantry items? If your stockpile went low or you are between pay periods you can still practice some frugal baking. For me, I hate paying full price for my groceries, so I tend to wait for the sales and coupons, or at least the opportunity to buy in bulk. This morning I wanted to take advantage of some zucchini I had to make a couple of loaves of chocolate zucchini bread. It is a great way to use up garden surplus and get some extra veggies into the kids. However, I found myself without some key ingredients. Fortunately with some budget baking substitution it wasn't a problem. The chocolate zucchini bread is cooling even as I wrote, and it smells incredible. Now, on to the substitutions. If you find yourself out of baking powder, you can get by when you substitute the following for each teaspoon that you need: 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch and 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar. Brown sugar can be replaced with regular white sugar and molasses. The ratio is 1 cup of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of molasses for light brown sugar, or 1 cup of white sugar and two tablespoons of molasses for dark brown sugar. Out of chocolate chips to melt into your recipe? This always happens to us because we tend to eat the chips out of the bag as well as bake with them. An easy substitute is 9 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, 7 tablespoons of sugar and three tablespoons of butter for every 6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites. Related Articles: For an easy way to restore rock hard brown sugar, see Saving Brown Sugar Frugal Food: Make Some Muffins Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments jonesx6 (1606) 05 Aug 2007 01:21 PMThanks for that! I always seem to run out of brown sugar. Laura  Valorie Delp (49340) 05 Aug 2007 02:11 PMI do hope this chocolate zucchini bread is in celebration of Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day!  Mary Ann Romans |
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