Why Reduced Fat Cream Cheese Won't Work For Your Pastries

Cream cheese is a common ingredient in several different recipes, including pie dough. It might seem like a strange addition to a flaky pie crust, but there is a good reason why you should consider using it. Adding it to your recipe can help keep the flour's gluten strands short and prevent it from becoming too overworked. The primary agent in the cream cheese responsible for conditioning the gluten is the fat. When the cream cheese is incorporated into the crust, the fat will coat each of the gluten strands, in turn preventing the crust from coming out with the consistency of a rubber tire. 

The key to adding cream cheese to your pie crust, though, is reading the label on the box before plopping it into your food processor. If you swap low or reduced-fat cream cheese for the regular stuff, it may not have the same intended effect. There may not be enough fat in your cream cheese to effectively coat the gluten strands, thus putting you at risk of a stodgy and overworked crust. 

Pie crusts aren't the only place where you're better off choosing a full-fat cream cheese over a reduced-fat one. Think of any recipe that uses cream cheese as its primary base — including your favorite New York-style cheesecake. When you swap out the low-fat cream cheese, you may be sacrificing that creamy mouthfeel that coats your tongue when you bite into it. 

Besides a differing mouthfeel, you should expect to also see changes in the consistency of your bake when you use reduced-fat cream cheese. Low-fat cream cheese tends to have a higher moisture content than the regular stuff, which means your filling may end up soggy after baking. The moisture difference also ties back into perfecting your pie crust. A higher moisture content in the cream cheese can cause the gluten in your dough to be overworked even faster because water is the catalyst for the gluten's elasticity.

So when can you use low-fat cream cheese as a replacement for the full-fat stuff? As a whole, low-fat cream cheese is best schmeared on a bagel or used as an alternative for a lighter dip. That way, there are no chemical reactions that are impingement on its fat content. That said, you should stick to the full-fat version for all of your baking needs unless your recipe okays you to do otherwise.