My second experiment adapted our apricot, honey & pistachio flapjacks. As with all liquid sweeteners, you’ll need to decrease the quantity of liquid in the recipe if you’re using it as a substitute for caster sugar – or just use it in place of golden syrup. “Syrups like agave are popular ingredients for a gooey flapjack or a sticky ginger cake – but whether you opt for golden syrup, maple syrup, honey, agave or rice syrup they’re all classed as ‘free’ sugars – the type we should be cutting back on. Subscription offer: Save 32% and receive a three-tier steamer worth £44.99. This staple of Middle Eastern cooking is lower in calories than caster sugar (around 28 per 10g, compared to 40), makes for deliciously squidgy bakes and has a treacly flavour that brings out the best in chocolate, nuts and bananas. 449 calories, … SUCRALOSE (e.g., Splenda) Good for baking as long as you use the Splenda baking formulation, which has low-calorie fillers added for bulk. When using this in place of your regular sugar in baking, stick to a 1-to-1 conversion, which means one cup of regular sugar is equivalent to one cup of coconut sugar. All the remaining ingredients were exactly the same along with the oven temperature. The result, a beautifully light cake with some colour. In their typical forms, both … I love butter and sugar, but unprocessed sweeteners can be more flavoursome.’. Using them in their whole form means you’ll be benefitting from the valuable fibre and nutrients they contain as well as enjoying their naturally sweet flavour. This didn’t work. These include coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup, and molasses. Baking Sugar Alternative: It's not all or nothing If you’re a bit hesitant to jump feet-first into the world of baking with a sugar replacer, try wading in gradually. Not wanting to give up on agave syrup, I tried it in coconut carrot slices. I replaced the caster sugar with xylitol and the golden syrup, with agave. Finally, I had a go at adapting Anzac biscuits which I’ve had many a time. A great tip is to combine veg like these with ground almonds to create a crumbly, naturally sweet cakey crumb. You can usually use less of them, and they are often slightly lower in calories than regular caster sugar and many have a comparatively low glycemic index (GI), so they’ll keep your blood sugar stable for longer after you’ve eaten them. While it tastes oh so delicious, consuming high levels of sugar can lead to weight gain, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.So, it is probably a good idea to skip all of those risks and look for a healthier alternative to white sugar in baking. (Hons) PgCert MBANT is a Registered Nutritionist with a post graduate diploma in Personalised Nutrition & Nutritional Therapy. Whether you’re into baking at home or trying to buy the right products at the grocery store, it’s important to know which sugar substitutes to choose and which to avoid. One word of warning: xylitol can have a laxative effect so go easy when you first try it – a slice of cake shouldn’t be an issue though. Honey, agave, maple syrup, molasses, turbinado, take your pick; all are sugars and have similar (if not exactly the same) calorie counts. Remember that sugar alternatives behave slightly differently to regular caster sugar once you get them in the oven – if you’re building your baking confidence, pick a recipe that has been written with your chosen alternative in mind. Popular veggie choices are carrots, parsnips and beetroot – these all work surprisingly well in sweet treats, as do sweet potatoes, squash and even courgettes. Dried fruit like dates, sultanas, prunes and apricots are concentrated sources of sweetness, rich in fibre and nutrients including iron and potassium. Magazine subscription – save 32% and get a three-tier steamer worth £44.99. You can use it as a substitute in many recipes [in a one-to-one ratio], but not those which use yeast as a raising agent. See our website terms and conditions for more information. What do you think of them? Alternatives to White Sugar. You can use light or dark brown sugar as a 1:1 substitute . These sugars undergo less processing so they retain some trace nutrients, though once again, the amount is negligible. Replace 25% of the sugar in your chocolate chip cookies with Baking Sugar Alternative. I replaced the 200g caster sugar with 200g xylitol in the sponge batter; a straight swap as caster sugar doesn’t have a particularly distinctive flavour, unlike its brown relatives. Hailing from Mexico, agave syrup is versatile and has a long shelf life as it doesn’t crystallise. It’s a good swap for honey if you’re cooking for a vegan. Made from the leaves of a plant that contains sweet-tasting compounds called steviol glycosides, stevia is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar, so the amount you use is tiny in comparison. The amount of calories remains same in white and brown... Turbinado or Raw Sugar. It’s 300 times sweeter, so some experts worry it might give you more of a taste for sweet stuff in the long run. But if you’re baking with them, can they hold their own? Brown sugar is the simplest substitute for granulated sugar. Over the last 15 years she has been a contributing author to a number of nutritional and cookery publications including BBC Good Food. Great for beverages & baking. 12 issues direct to your door - never miss an issue Get clued up on other ingredients you can use in your bakes: Use raw cacao nibs and raw cacao powder instead of chocolate. By honeybees amount of calories remains same in white and brown... Turbinado or raw,. 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