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Baking With Less Sugar

Recipes for Desserts Using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-no White Sugar
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Feb 02, 2018dnk rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Both as a response to requests of longtime customers and to address her husband's sugar sensitivity- and, it seems, because of the intellectual challenge required- Chang rejiggered some old favorites to use less sugar. In many cases, Chang keeps the basic structure of a recipe but simply reduces the amount of sugar. (If you've ever put more than a cup of sugar into a cake recipe, you'll be relieved to know that you can get away with as little as a third of a cup to achieve the same results in structure and lose very little in taste.) In other cases, Chang uses "natural" alternatives, including honey, maple syrup, dates and fruit juice concentrates; she does mention stevia's properties, but (thankfully) doesn't use it in baking because stevia is only a sweetener and doesn't work as a stabilizer. Finally, she relies on the natural sweetness in some common ingredients, including dairy cream, coconut milk and vanilla. (Is vanilla, even in seed/paste form, sweet? I don't think so, but because so many of us associate the flavor with sweetness, psychologically that's enough to convey it without extra sugar, at least in whipped cream.) As someone who has been baking for a family for decades, I've known for quite some time that much of the sugar could be reduced without a problem- in cakes. I was particularly impressed by what Chang could do with frosting. The "cover model" is a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting; as anyone who has ever made a cream cheese frosting knows, it becomes softer more quickly and sometimes requires more sugar than buttercream frostings to help hold its shape. Chang uses a combination of vigorous beating and heavy cream to achieve an impressively similar result. Highly recommended for home bakers who want to use less sugar.