Baking With Sugar Substitutes: Tips and Recipes
| Recipes by Robyn Webb, MS, LN |
Agave Cinnamon Mini Scones |
To indulge your occasional taste for a treat, Food Editor Robyn Webb offers some recipes that will help you bake with fewer calories and carbohydrate grams.
Swapping non-nutritive sweeteners (think brands such as Equal, Splenda, Sugar Twin, Truvia, and more) for added sugars in foods can help you reach and maintain a healthy weight and can aid in blood glucose control, according to a recent joint statement by the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association. The trick is, don’t overeat later, wiping out the calorie and carbohydrate savings.
Such sweeteners also don’t act quite like sugar in cooking, so there are a few things to know before you bake with them, says Food Editor Robyn Webb.
Height, Color, and Texture
“Your baked recipes will not rise as high,” she says. Baked goods made without added sugar also tend to be pale and lack a tender crust. The golden-brown color that tells us cakes and cookies are baked to perfection is a result of sugar caramelizing when exposed to heat.
Sugar also acts as a preservative and helps retain moisture. So a baked good made with a non-nutritive sweetener will grow stale more quickly, especially when there’s less fat in the recipe. For storage, Webb suggests freezing baked goods you don’t plan to eat within 24 hours.
| Sweetener Comparisons, per 1/4 cup | ||
| Honey: Cal. 260, Carb. 70 g | Agave Nectar: Cal. 240, Carb. 64 g | Granulated Sugar: Cal. 195, Carb. 50 g |
| Splenda Sugar Blend: Cal. 190, Carb. 48 g | Domino Light Sugar Blend: Cal. 165, Carb. 41 g | Non-nutritive Sweeteners*: Cal. 20, Carb. 5 g |
| Sweet Savings: Sugar blends have about the same calories and carbohydrate by volume as sugar, but you use only half the amount in recipes. Honey and agave nectar have more calories by volume than sugar, but you’ll probably need to use less of these sweeteners, too, yielding some calorie savings. | ||
| *Average of aspartame (Equal Classic Spoonful), saccharin (Sugar Twin Granulated White), stevia (Stevia in the Raw), and sucralose (Splenda Granulated) | ||
Baking Tips
Sugar blends—made with granulated sugar, non-nutritive sweeteners, and ingredients that add bulk—tend to give better baked results, but your cakes, cookies, and muffins “still won’t look or taste 100 percent like those made with sugar,” Webb says. Although the calories and carbohydrate grams are similar cup for cup between sugar and a blend, you’ll need only about half the amount of blend, thus cutting calories and carbohydrate grams.
Liquid Sweeteners
Webb enjoys baking with liquid sweeteners such as honey and agave nectar. “Although you may not save very many calories, you’ll probably be able to use slightly less and these sweeteners give a wonderful, caramely taste,” she says. When baking with liquid sweeteners, Webb recommends cutting any other liquid in the recipe by about 25 percent. “You’ll have to experiment,” she says. Or not—just pick one of Webb’s recipes on the following pages.
|
|
|
| Agave Cinnamon Mini Scones | Blueberry-Lemon-Ginger Muffins | Stevia Apple Cake |
Comments
Comments are subject to review and will not be posted immediately. If you have an urgent medical question, please consult a health care professional. If you have a question for the staff of Diabetes Forecast, please send it to replyall@diabetes.org.Suggested use of Aspartame in recipes
Recommend you read the following before you recommend using Aspartame for any thing, especially since it does the opposite of what is claimed for it.
http://rense.com/general33/legal.htm
How Aspartame Became Legal - The Timeline
From Rich Murray rmforall@att.net 12-24-2
http://www.beliefnet.com/Wellness/Consequences-of-Drinking-Diet-Soda.asp...
Consequences of Drinking Diet Soda The Contradiction
It seems paradoxical that a product with no calories could result in gaining weight. In fact, most of us don’t believe this to be the case. But the untold secret of diet beverages is this: weight gain is complicated. It’s not strictly a matter of what you ingest, it’s what your body thinks you ingested.
diabetic medicine
I live East Africa Ethiopia the riegin of Amhara the capital city of Bahir Dar and I am a pationent of diabetic type2 my sugar level not constant some times 130 some times 200 by this cause I need to take natural honey so please tell me?
Learing to cut down on sweet foods and carbs
For many years ADA and other organizations have been suggesting people use artificial sweetners to cut down on carbs and calories. Maybe it is time to go back to talking about giving up sweetend foods and high carb foods. As a CDE for many years I can tell you from personal experience and from patient reports that it is much more effective to slowly break the habit of eating sweetened foods and substitute fruit as a sweet. Eating pastries years ago was a rare event and it has become a daily event for many people. This is a bad habit and like all habits can be changed over time. I see so many people who kid themselves into believing they can eat high carb foods and still loose that extra weight and control blood sugar levels. Unfortunately they are not successful.
Sugar in our Lives
I remember growing up and things not being as sickly sweet as they are today. I am also a product of the South where women baked some of the best cakes, pies and breads you could imagine. I still use the recipes that the women from mine and neighboring families used for years. When I compare these recipes with the ones that come out today, the new ones use two and sometimes almost three times the amount of sugar that my recipes use. When my children were growing up they really liked Kool-Aid but only when I made it for them. They thought it was too sweet at other children's homes. My secret, I only used half the sugar it called for on the package. My children grew up in a house where the cookie jar was always full and they are not sweet junkies. They are raising their own families and I am happy to say none of my eight Grandchildren and two Great Grandchildren are sweet junkies. None of them was raised on store bought baby food either as that is where some of the early craving for starch and sugar comes into play. Their food as babies was the same as the rest of the family only mashed up when they were young. Many of you are probably saying that this doesn't sound believable, but it is, and for a note of intrest, I was a Professional Baker and Cake Decorator (retired).
Sugar in our lives
I really enjoyed reading your post. I too grew up on less sugar and more good food. I raised my babies on the same foods we ate and they were so healthy that the doctors use to ask me my secret. Thankfully one of my daughters in law listened to my advice and did the same with the 2 grandkids I have from her and my oldest son the result very very healthy boys!! My other daughter in law didn't want any advise from me and I do believe that the junk she calls food is responsible for the poor health of her children..I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that those 2 kids are at the doctor on an average of 3 times a month!!!!! NO LIE prepackaged, processed and fast foods are no substitute to good old fashioned stews and home baked goods. I love the old receips with less sugar and your kool aid was just like mine.
We could have been great friends lol
Type 2 v Type 1
I am a Type 1 diabetic and it is extremly discouraging that there is so much information out there about T2's. The news, the diabetic magazines...etc. Everything is always about living with T2, healthy eating with T2, advanced medication for T2. I am so tired of uneducated general medical doctors telling me "exercise and eat healthy and you may not need insulin anymore". I think that the American Diabetes Association needs to start educating physicians and others that T1 is extremely different and actually worse than T2. I was diagnosed as a T1 without any prior indications when I was 27 years old. Because I did not have T1 as a juvenile, I have had so many phyicians tell me that there is no way that I can be T1 because that is only "juveline diabetes". Why can't us T1's be spoken about more? We shouldn't be grouped with T2's who mostly can just correct eating habits and exercise and be able to live a great life popping a pill once a day and checking their bg 4 times a day. I take numerous injections (usually 5-7 per day) and I need to check my bg every 2 hours. Imagine living like that! No sympathy for T2's, you have it SO easy!! I do understand that some T2's need insulin, but, not to the degree that Type 1's do. We cannot do ANYTHING, go anywhere, eat anything without insulin.
Holiday Treats
My wife will be baking soon and at thanksgiving she make her deep dish dutch apple pie, and I am a type 2 diabetic and should she make two pies one for her and our girls and one just for me with splenda?
Also come Christmas she will be making cookies and also a pecan pie.
Also, what would be a good way to help cut down on sugar with things like yams and cranberry sauce? I know that sweet potatoes will work instead of canned yams, but does anyone make sugar free or reduced sugar cranberry sauce??
I want to enjoy they holiday meals but as a type 2 diabectic I want to enjoy it but not to lose out
Maybe your wife would like
Maybe your wife would like to submit her Deep-Dish Dutch Apple Pie recipe for a diabetes-friendly makeover. If so, here are the instructions:
How to get a makeover!
Send your recipe (complete ingredient list and instructions) along with your name, city, and state to forecasteditor@diabetes.org.
sugar free cranberry sauce
using the portion on the bag of cranberries I use 1/2 the splenda called for and boil. After cooked I stir in a pkg of red sugar free jello to help it set a little more.
ADA BIGGEST SCAM TO DIABETES SOCIETY
ADA Full of cr*p! If you want to normalise you blood sugars stay away from these 'experts' get yourself on a low carb diet! Read Dr Bernstein!! Save yourself!!! These people will lead you to complications and death!!
Post new comment