I’m not a food critic, a foodie, or a locavore. I have no aspirations to own a charming, ten-table restaurant that serves imaginative comfort food. Heck, I’ve been known to take the kind of shortcuts that would appall Martha Stewart, from decorating a cake with ready-made frosting to substituting generous amounts of Pam for parchment paper when I didn’t feel like combining arts and crafts with cooking. In short, I’m no Julia Child. I have a healthy interest in food, but I eat to live, not the other way around.

At the same time, however, I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, stinking it up with pungent spices and cluttering my pantry with utensils used but once or twice a year. I’d never tried much Asian cooking — aside from a few very inauthentic stir-fry dishes cribbed from the pages of Better Homes & Gardens — but when Vertical, Inc. began sending me review copies from their cookbook line, I figured it was high time to try my hand at making donburi and sushi. I suspect I’m not alone in wondering just how hard it would be to replicate what I’ve eaten at my favorite Japanese bakeries and restaurants, so I thought it might be fun to share my experiences as I familiarize myself with Japanese seasonings, sauces, and cooking techniques. (And libations. There Will Be Sake!) My motto: if I can do it, anyone with opposable thumbs has a good shot at success, too.

Since I’m an unapologetic carbohydrate fiend — and a bit of a wuss — I decided to begin in the shallow end with The Worry-Free Bakery: Treats Without Oil and Butter (Vertical, Inc.). This Japanese import promises health-conscious sweet-tooths an alternative to the fat-laden goodies found at the bakery, substituting whole milk and yogurt for butter, cream, and oil. In the foreword, nurse-cum-baker Kumiko Ibaraki argues that sugar gets a bum rap in nutritional literature, even though fat is a more harmful element of the modern diet:

Most people think of sugar as fattening, but it’s okay. Your body burns it off fast so it’s a safe ingredient to use. Your body can easily break down the sugar and convert it into energy. In fact, compared to other nutrients, sugar turns into energy the fastest.

Sugar is an important nutrient as an energy source for your brain and body. It helps raise serotonin levels in your brain, which helps stabilize your mood. So, with that knowledge, be at ease and make as many treats for you want for you and your family.

Though my inner eight-year-old was delighted to hear that cookies, cakes, muffins, doughnuts, and Twizzlers might be considered “brain food,” I must admit that I was taken aback by the author’s assertion. Recent medical studies have suggested a strong connection between consumption of high-glycemic foods (e.g. cookies, cakes, muffins…) and a host of health problems, from obesity to high cholesterol. Perhaps the Japanese diet isn’t as riddled with simple sugars as the American, but Ibaraki’s message is not the most salubrious for a country in which the average citizen eats three pounds of sugar every week.

Though the scientific rationale for The Worry-Free Bakery is a bit shaky, the recipes themselves are solid, offering readers low-fat variations on old favorites. (For all her talk of sweets, Ibaraki’s recipes call for less sugar than their Western equivalents.) Ibaraki has divided the book into three main chapters: “everyday treats” (e.g. muffins, cookies, scones), “dreamy sweets” (e.g. brownies, buche de noel), and “cool confections” (e.g. ice cream, custard). I test-drove recipes from each section with an eye towards ease of preparation, accuracy of instructions, and, most importantly, tastiness of finished product.

Surprisingly, the recipes in the “everyday” section yielded the best results: the cakes, cookies, and muffins were light and tasty with just a hint of sweetness. (For comparison, think of an uncoated Pocky biscuit.) Many called for fruit or zest to compensate for the lack of butter or oil, a strategy that both enhanced the flavor and improved the texture of the finished results. Not all of the substitutions were entirely successful, however, as I discovered when I baked Chocolate Banana Muffins (p. 10; see photo, left). The recipe called for cocoa powder and rum in place of baking chocolate and oil, producing muffins that smelled heavenly but had a peculiar finish vaguely reminiscent of potting soil. The same problem bedeviled me when I prepared Chocolate Brownies (p. 44) from the “dreamy sweets” section; without a proper binding agent, the cocoa powder’s flavor never satisfactorily infused the batter. (My boyfriend cracked a few Soylent Green jokes when prompted for an assessment of the brownies. I’m not sure if that was an indictment of my baking skills or the recipe, but in the interest of interpersonal harmony, I didn’t press the issue.)

The other thing I discovered about “worry-free baking” is that fat makes dough much easier to handle. Absent butter or oil, the dough became incredibly sticky — an issue when baking tea cakes and muffins, to be sure, but a nightmare when making roll-out cookies and pie crusts. (See Cookie Cutter Cookies, p. 22, below right.) To stave off frustration and epic countertop messes, Ibaraki provides helpful tips for preparing baking surfaces with rice flour (it works much better than conventional flour to reduce cling) and step-by-step instructions for lining pans with parchment paper.

The recipes are straightforward and easy to follow, with numerous photographs illustrating technique and demonstrating what the food should look like at each stage of preparation. The measurements are sometimes a bit off, running the gamut from the quaintly non-standard (1/5 cup?) to the just plain odd (5.25 ounces of raspberries?). Most of the required ingredients are probably in your pantry, though a few recipes — Pumpkin Cakes (p. 11), Cherry-Blossom Cupcakes (p. 20), and Burdock and Carrot Cake (p. 28) — may require a special trip to Whole Foods or an Asian supermarket to obtain.

The bottom line: The Worry-Free Bakery may not offer fat-free, guilt-free alternatives to your favorite scone or muffin recipes, but its recipes do offer refined palates a welcome respite from the cloyingly sweet stuff peddled at Starbucks, Panera, and your local bakery.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.