Not to put too fine a point on it… baking sweet treats without sugar is hard!

Reducing sugar is easy. I find that most recipes, and all commercially produced foods have too much sugar in them, overpowering the very flavors the sweetness is meant to enhance. I can easily do without about 1/2 the sugar in my old favorite recipes, but removing refined sugar altogether? That is another story.

But I have learned that the refined sugar I grew up with is not doing me any favors health wise, so I buy it only for the hummingbirds these days. I still like a sweet treat now and again however and, over time, I’ve tried all sorts of alternatives including:

Sugar and some other sweeteners.

• Agave Nectar
• Honey
• Crystalized Fructose
• Stevia
• Fruit Juice
• Splenda
• Date Sugar
• Pulverized whole Dates
• and recently a new product called “Just Like Sugar” (not)
• Molasses

I’ve had varying success with all of these! Almost all of these are far more expensive than sugar, but a little restraint with the treats is a good idea anyway. Here are some of my thoughts on each…

Agave Nectar is fairly flavor neutral, and will actually carmelize, making it handy for a caramel flan. I run into trouble with it in recipes at times because of moisture content. Also, though it is supposed to be lower glycemic, my carb senstive partner has trouble with it.

Honey is supposed to be an anti-cancer food. I don’t know it that’s true (I hope it is) and I also have no idea whether the heat of cooking honey would remove any benefits. I use honey mostly for sweetening tea and cinnamon toast. In cooking, I usually choose Agave Nectar over Honey.

Crystalized Fructose is flavor neutral – a little sweeter than cane sugar. It works OK in recipes, adds weight and bulk much like sugar, but does not carmelize, and as a refined product does not bring any nutritional benefits to the table.

Stevia. I can’t really figure out how to use this well. It adds no bulk or weight to a recipe usually meaning I have to rethink all the ingredients. It also is almost too sweet, hard to regulate the right amount, and for me, it has a mild but unpleasant aftertaste. The best way I’ve seen stevia used was in a berry pie. It sweetened the berries and I could not detect the aftertaste, so as a fruit or beverage sweetener, it seems to work best for me.

Fruit Juice. I’ve had good success making tasty treats using fruit juice in the place of sugar and liquid (e.g. orange juice instead of sugar and milk). While it is a milder sweetness than the sugar, it tastes good and hits the same sweetness receptors.

Splenda. Not bad, I’ve used this successfully in quite a few recipes. It tastes OK, it’s a little too sweet for me, I have to back off on the 1 for 1 conversion they recommend. My main gripe with this is I don’t like to use anything that does not add to the dish nutritionally, and I shy away from anything made in a lab. The only reason I’ve tried it is my Mom uses it.

Date sugar and pulverized whole dates. I love the flavor dates give a dish! Rich and brown sugar butterscotch-ey. Dates add weight, and moistness to the finished product. Dates add fiber and some nutritional value also. They are however, heavy, dark in color and do not dissolve, making them an inappropriate choice for dishes like angel food cake.

Just Like Sugar. I was excited when I found this at the health food store. Made from chicory root fiber, calcium vitamin C, and orange peel extracts, it seems like a pretty decently healthy choice, extremely high in fiber. It is a lot like Splenda in weight and color. I tried making sugar cookies with it and was pretty happy with the look and texture. However, it hits different sweetness receptors than sugar. It didn’t taste sweet until it hit the middle and sides of my tongue, and then it was too sweet. It also had a lingering effect, like the sweetness would not go away, which I found cloying. Too bad. “Like sugar” it is not. It might work better in a recipe that does not depend so much on the sugar for taste as well as sweetness. I’m gonna give this stuff one more try.

Molasses. I love molasses’ flavor, but it tends to overpower other ingredients, so unless you are looking for this flavor, like in gingerbread and molasses cookies, it is too strong to be an all purpose sugar substitute.

I have also tried barley malt and brown rice syrup with limited success.

I’ve not really intensively evaluated the health benefits (or lack there of) of the sweeteners I’ve tried so far, nor do I know which are best from a blood sugar standpoint – I read varying reports and not all agree. My instinct is to use the least refined, most natural choice when baking sweet treats – one with fiber and nutrients intact – so my favorite sweetener right now is dates and date “sugar”.

Let me know what sweeteners you use, and how they work for you!