Cheree Sheldon, Nutritionist for the Sugar Detox 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge has provided some tips on the ways to use sugar substitutes to get the best results in your cooking and baking:
When replacing sugar in a recipe how do you know which sugar replacement will work best and how do you use it?
If you are baking a cake, you can replace castor sugar with xylitol (add 1/2 cup xylitol per 1 cup sugar). You can also use any of the syrups – molasses, agave, coconut blossom nectar, maple or rice malt syrup. Use approx 1/2 to 3/4 of syrup to what it says to use sugar.
If you are making icing sugar- there is a stevia based icing sugar mix on the market, or you can try mixing a little of one of the syrup alternatives with some coconut oil and tapioca flour. As long as you keep food you’ve iced cold after icing, it turns out OK!
In teas or coffee, use pure stevia, coconut blossom sugar or xylitol.
A lot of the time when I am cooking something, I mix the sugar alternatives together, so I would add a tiny bit of honey, maple syrup or molasses for texture, and then add a pinch of green leaf stevia to balance the sweetness I am after.
A pinch of salt added to most sweet recipes, brings out the sweetness more too, so keep this trick up your sleeve!
Your taste buds adjust to changes you make. At first you may not like it as much as the old sugary faves you grew up on, but pretty soon, those sugary staples will taste sickly and excessive. And you will understand, after having retrained your taste buds why foods like that should really be offered in very small portions and as occasional treats!
Keep experimenting and happy baking!
Cheree Sheldon, Nutritionist