You can bake delicious cakes and cookies without having to use refined sugar. Most alternatives are perfectly sweet, from fruit to rice syrup - and they are better for your body, too. Berlin (dpa) – You don't always have to use the amount specified in the recipe. Pastries can taste sweet even with less sugar in the dough. "Rather than using the amount specified in the recipe, for example 100 grams of sugar, 75 grams is often enough," says German recipe developer and cookbook author Susann Kreihe. Totally cutting out all the granulated sugar specified in a recipe is not a good idea though, she says, as sugar not only adds flavour, but also loosens the dough and ensures a smooth consistency. "The problem with granulated sugar is that it can be addictive," says professional nutritionist, author and blogger Sabine Voshage. And that often has disadvantages. ANyone who regularly consumes large amounts of sugar has an increased risk of obesity and tooth decay. "Too much sugar also upsets the balance of the intestinal flora," says Voshage. It promotes the growth of unwanted bacteria, potentially causing flatulence, diarrhoea or constipation. Use dried dates as a sweetener instead But you don't necessarily have to use sugar when you bake. "There are several alternatives for sweetening dough," says Voshage. Try using dried dates. You chop the dates into small pieces and soak them in water then purée them with water into a paste. Recipe for biscuits with date paste If you want to try using date paste in your homemade cookies, Voshage has this recipe: Make date paste using 100 grams of dried dates and 70 millilitres of water. Then take: 150 grams of spelt flour type 630 100 grams of ground almonds half a packet of cream of tartar baking powder two pinches of natural salt 100 grams of hard organic butter Put everything in a bowl and knead into a smooth dough using the dough hook attachment on a hand mixer. Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes. Then roll out to a thickness of about four to five millimetres. Cut out biscuits in various shapes and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius top/bottom heat for about 15 minutes. There are other alternatives to sugar beyond date paste - but check the weights involved. "If a recipe specifies a certain amount of table sugar as a baking ingredient, this amount cannot always be replaced one-to-one with another sweetener," says Kreihe. Sadly, there are no exact conversion tables so ideally, look for a recipe with the sugar alternative already added in, or create one yourself, though that may involve some experimenting. Other sugar alternatives Sugar alternatives that can be used to sweeten dough when baking include Dried figs: You can use dried figs can be used to make a paste similar to that made from dried dates, which can be used for sweetening, Voshage says. Apples: Peel sweet apples, remove the cores, cook until soft and then purée. "This creates an apple purée that tastes sweet but does not contain any sugar," says Kreihe. Bananas: Mash the banana with a fork. "The browner and therefore riper a banana is, the sweeter it tastes," says Voshage. Coconut blossom sugar: Coconut blossom sugar, extracted from the dried and ground nectar of coconut palm blossoms, has a light brown colour and a caramel-like taste. "It gives the pastry a special aroma," says Kreihe. Birch sugar (xylitol): Birch sugar is similar in sweetness to sugar, but significantly lower in calories. "In many recipes, sugar can be replaced by birch sugar in a ratio of one to one," says Voshage. Rice syrup: Rice syrup can also be used to sweeten dough. However, Kreihe says the sweetness of this white syrup, which originated in Japan, is slightly lower than that of sugar. But be careful: if rice syrup is used as a sugar substitute, reduce the amount of liquid in the dough accordingly. Honey: You can replace some of the sugar with honey when baking. But dough in which you use honey instead of sugar browns more quickly during baking. "Keep an eye on the degree of browning," says Kreihe. Agave syrup: You can also use agave syrup instead of sugar in baking. It is sweeter than sugar. However, it has a similar calorie content to sugar and Germany's Federal Centre for Nutrition recommends using agave syrup only rarely. The following information is not intended for publication dpa/tmn eut bzl cwg tsn xxde arw (The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)
