Just because you have decided to cut out on sugar doesn’t mean that your sweet tooth has to suffer as well. There are so many delicious ways to get around a sugar restriction that you’ll never even miss having sugar in your diet. If you’re a baked goods fan like I am then you’ll find all sorts of recipes which you can use sugar substitutes and other types of sweeteners. You’ll also find that there’s a plethora of sweeteners on the market, including a few made specifically for baking. These tips will help you to create sugar-free baked goods that are as sweet and delicious as those made with regular sugar.
Get to know your sugar substitutes
There are many different ways to sweeten foods without sugar, but not all of them work equally well in baked goods. Splenda Granulated is generally recognized as the best substitute for sugar in cooked and baked goods. It is designed to measure like sugar, so you don’t have to do complicated conversions and it also doesn’t lose its sweetness when heated like most other sugar substitutes. Splenda granulated also tastes the closest to sugar out of all sugar substitutes.
Use Splenda Granulated for desserts and baked goods that rely on sugar mainly for taste and sweetness. It’s ideal for use in puddings, custards, ice cream and even cheesecake. Splenda Granulated is also the sugar-free sweetener of choice for quick breads, muffins, cookies and pies.
Splenda also makes several other sugar substitutes used for baking that are a substitute/sugar hybrid and work just as well as 100% regular sugar. These blends are Splenda Sugar Blend and Splenda Brown Sugar Blend, each of which consisting of Splenda mixed with either 50% sugar or 50% brown sugar respectively. Cup for cup, they can help you to reduce the sugar content and calorie count of baked goods by half while retaining the texture and moisture that you expect in baked goods made with sugar.
Things to Know About Baking with Splenda
Splenda Granulated is designed to measure and pour like sugar. One cup of Splenda has the same sweetening power of one cup of sugar.
Splenda can be used in microwave cooking and baking without losing its sweetness, as well as in high altitude baking.
Splenda Blend is the ideal sugar substitute in baked goods like brownies, candies and layer cakes. Because it contains only a small amount of sugar, it gives the volume, browning, moisture and texture that you expect in those recipes. To substitute Splenda Blend for sugar in your recipes, use ½ cup of Blend for every cup of sugar.
Other Sugar Free Baking Tips
Baking with sugar substitutes isn’t exactly like baking with regular sugar. Because sugar does more than just sweeten your baked goods, you may need to make a few other changes in your recipes in order to get the best results.
- To get the height you expect in layer cakes and quick breads, try baking in 8” cake pans instead of 9” cake pans.
- For a better rise, try adding ½ cup nonfat dry milk powder and ½ teaspoon of baking soda for every cup of sugar substitute when baking layer cakes.
- If you’re making custard sauce, pudding or cookies, add an extra teaspoon of vanilla to the recipe to intensify the sweetness.
- Keep in mind that yeast recipes need real sugar in order to activate the yeast. If you’re making yeast-raised breads or other goodies that rely on yeast, keep at least two tablespoons of sugar in your recipe to activate the yeast.
- If a pale cake won’t do the trick for you, try spraying the surface of your cake with cooking spray just before baking. Sugar substitutes don’t caramelize like sugar, so you won’t get browning unless you take other steps to get that lovely baked look to your breads, cakes and cookies.
- Recipes made with sugar substitutes tend to bake faster than those made with sugar. If you’re baking with a sugar substitute, check on your baked goods a few minutes before the recipe calls for to make sure that they don’t overcook. Your cakes may be done up to ten minutes sooner than you expect, and cookies or brownies could be finished up to seven minutes early.
- Try adding some additional sweetness by using fruit puree to replace some of the shortening or moisture in fruit breads and muffins.
Baking with sugar substitutes does take a little bit of practice to get consistent and reliable results. However, the same could be said about baking with regular sugar. Once you start baking without sugar on a regular basis you may actually find that you like the flavor and the results of your food much better than sweet baked goods made with sugar.
Jennifer Bailey is a freelance writer who writes about losing weight and keeping it off by exercising and eating low calories meals made with items like
Splenda .
