Stewed prunes recipes
What’s nicer than sharing homemade cake with family and friends? Baking is one of life’s pleasures, stewed prunes recipes if like many of us, you’re taking steps to cut the sugar in your diet, it shouldn’t mean an end to it. That’s if your cake hangs around long enough!
Sugar also keeps baked goods moist, so sugar-free versions may need to be wrapped before storage to prevent them drying out. So, what are the most useful alternatives to sugar? There are a number of sugar substitutes on the market but the most natural are whole fruit and vegetables. 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. Bananas are an obvious choice but don’t forget other exotic fruits that are naturally high in sugar, like pineapple and mango. One of the key considerations when using fruit and veg is to make sure they’re as ripe as possible so you optimise their natural sweetness. If you’re looking for a substitute that will give you a straight swap for sugar, xylitol may be the answer.
You can use it as a substitute in many recipes , but not those which use yeast as a raising agent. Cakes sweetened with xylitol don’t tend to colour very much, but that’s not a problem for coffee or chocolate cakes. Stevia”If you’re worried about calories, try stevia. 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. What’s more, it doesn’t impact blood sugar levels or cause tooth decay.
Stevia is available as granules, tablets or in liquid form and is stable at high temperatures, so it can be used in baked goods and puddings. I’m often asked about the benefits of some popular alternatives like agave and coconut sugar. These ingredients are being used more and more frequently but don’t forget they’re simply sugar by a different name. Coconut sugar is made from the sap of the coconut palm tree. It is fundamentally the same as palm sugar and jaggery, which are made from palm sap and sugar cane, respectively.
These sugars undergo less processing so they retain some trace nutrients, though once again, the amount is negligible. First up, our 5-star rated classic Victoria sandwich. The result, a beautifully light cake with some colour. I tried swapping the soft brown sugar for an equal quantity of agave syrup and kept the rest of the ingredients the same. The flapjacks didn’t hold together very well. I think a reduced amount and no honey would have worked better.
