Baking with Less Sugar (5 page)

2. How to make crème fraîche.
You can buy crème fraîche in many supermarkets, but there's really no need. It's really easy to make and is one of my favorite baking ingredients. Simply place 960 g/4 cups of heavy cream into a container, add about 60 g/
¹
/
₄
cup of buttermilk, and stir to blend. Cover and leave the cream mixture at room temperature in a warm area of your kitchen for at least 12 hours. Then, stir the cream with a wooden spoon for 15 to 20 seconds. If it has not thickened, cover again and return to a warm place for another 3 to 4 hours. Check again and keep stirring until it thickens. Once it has thickened, you have successfully made crème fraîche! Store it in the refrigerator until ready to use; it will keep for up to 3 weeks. To make more, you can use the crème fraîche that you have in place of the buttermilk in the basic recipe: take 960 g/4 cups of heavy cream, add about 60 g/
¹
/
₄
cup of crème fraîche, and follow the directions. Once you have crème fraîche in your refrigerator, keep making it so you will always have it. Use it instead of heavy cream in cooking and instead of sour cream in baking and eating.

3. How to calibrate your oven.
I've yet to walk into a kitchen, whether home or professional, in which the ovens didn't need some sort of adjustment. Ovens that don't get used much tend to have wonky internal thermometers from lack of use, and ovens that are in frequent use need constant regulation of their thermostats to ensure they are heating to the temperature they are set for. Buy an oven thermometer and place it in the middle of the oven. Give your oven at least 10 minutes to heat up and then check the thermometer. If the temperature on the thermometer does not match that of your dial, your oven needs some TLC. A repair person can fix your oven so it is heating up as it should, or you can do as I do at home and make the adjustment in your head. My home oven runs cold, which means that when I turn it on to 350°F [175°C], it only gets to around 320°F [160°C]. So to compensate, I simply set it to 380°F [195°C] and then it bakes perfectly. (Someday I'll get around to calling that repair person.)

4. How to preheat your oven.
You don't really need directions on how to preheat your oven, but you might need a reminder about why it is important. If you put a cake or pie or cookies into a cold or even warmish oven and allow the oven
to heat up while the pastry is inside, the batter or dough will melt before it cooks, and the precious air bubbles you've worked hard to incorporate will peter out. Leaden and dense pastries are the awful result! I've listed “preheat your oven to XXX°F [YYY°C]” at the beginning of the recipes for a reason. Do it before you start and then only put items into your oven once it has fully come to temperature. When you hear that pastry takes patience, this is what they mean. Wait those 10 minutes! Your pastries will thank you.

5. How to grate ginger.
Grating fresh ginger can be a frustrating task—it gets stringy and you feel like you're grating more of your knuckles than the ginger—until you learn this nifty trick: Place the ginger in the freezer and when it is completely frozen, use the rounded part of a spoon to easily scrape off the peel. Grate to your heart's content. You'll have a heap of grated ginger in no time.

To work around not using refined white sugar, I loved exploring baking with these ingredients. Not all of these made their way into the recipes here, but I offer them up as well as possibilities for you to play with in your baking. I made a conscious decision not to include artificial sweeteners. I've never liked the various aftertastes that each one brings, and I wanted to develop recipes that I'd feel comfortable serving anyone looking to reduce refined white sugar consumption.

1. Maple syrup.
Maple is the boiled sap from the maple tree. It has a buttery, warm flavor (maybe it just seems buttery and warm to me because I associate it with a big pile of pancakes), and it adds a distinctive flavor to all of the desserts it is used in. We use grade B maple syrup, which means that it comes from tapping maple trees of their sap late in the winter when it is a bit warmer and the sap is more concentrated. It's darker in color than grade A, rich, and caramel-y, and offers the most flavor bang for the buck in baking. Once opened, maple syrup should be stored in the refrigerator where it will last about 6 months. If you see mold on the surface of the syrup, discard the whole jar as it may be contaminated. The standard substitution if you want to substitute maple syrup for sugar is 1 cup syrup for 1 cup sugar and then decrease the liquid in the recipe by 3 tablespoons per 1 cup substitution. This results in a dessert of equal sweetness to the original, but I've learned that you can typically halve the amount of sweetness in many pastries and they will taste just as good if not better.

2. Honey.
Depending on where it is harvested and from what flower, honey comes in all different flavors and kinds. As with many ingredients I use in baking, I tend to choose what tastes good to me in its raw state to determine what I use in my baked goods; with so many locally produced honeys these days, I suggest you pick one that you love eating straight from the jar for your baking. Honey can be stored at room temperature when open. It's a bit higher in calories than sugar and also sweeter, so you can use less in your baking and still satisfy your sweet tooth.

3. Molasses.
This thick, dark treacle syrup is the by-product of refining sugarcane or beets for sugar. I stock a mild unsulphured molasses in my pantry that adds a spicy warm note to my baking. It is acidic, which means that it reacts with baking soda; cakes made with molasses will always have baking soda in them to release the bubbles and lighten the batter. Blackstrap molasses is extremely thick, strong, and bittersweet. It is the by-product of the final stages of refining sugar and it has the most minerals and health benefits of all the types of molasses but is also the most pungent. For our purposes, we use a mild molasses that is not blackstrap since its flavor is gentler. These molasses, such as Grandma's brand, still confer significant nutrients, though they are not as nutrition dense as blackstrap.

4. Apple juice and grape juice concentrates.
When I was buying “fruit-only spread” for our toast at home in an effort to reduce our personal sugar consumption, I noticed that the ingredients were always fruit and then apple and grape juice concentrates. I really couldn't tell the difference and neither could Christopher; in fact we both preferred these to the full-sugar versions because the flavors of the fruit really came through. With that in mind, I reduced apple juice and grape juice concentrates until they became thick and syrupy and used them to sweeten a host of desserts with great success.

5. Vanilla extract and vanilla beans.
My favorite flavor by far, vanilla immediately makes your mouth and nose think “sweet” when it's included in a dessert. Vanilla beans are expensive but worth it; their tiny seeds infuse everything they are mixed into with an unmistakable heady perfume. Store them tightly wrapped in a cool, dark place. We also use a lot of vanilla extract in our baking. It's a less expensive, albeit less potent, way of adding vanilla flavor to a dessert. Make sure to get pure, not artificial, extract and store it in a cool, dark cabinet.

6. Almond extract.
Like vanilla extract, a trace of almond extract flavoring in a pastry can prime your taste buds to sweetness. Adding a little bit to certain desserts will give you a sense of sweetness without having to use sugar. It is strong, so use it sparingly. I add it to any dessert that has almonds in it, and I also like it with stone fruit desserts. The pit of a stone fruit—apricots, peaches, cherries, nectarines—has a faintly almond taste if you crack it open, and the flavor of the almond extract goes particularly well with these fruits.

7. Cinnamon and similar spices.
When you get a whiff of cinnamon, instantly you can “taste” sweetness in your head. Cinnamon brings a heady, gentle sweetness to baked goods and, when used in moderation, can lead your taste buds to think something is sweeter than it really is. I've been using pinches of ground cinnamon in my home baking and eating for years; Christopher's daily oatmeal has a generous grating of cinnamon stick, and he's never once missed the sugar in his breakfast. In addition to cinnamon, other spices like nutmeg, allspice, mace, cardamom, and ground ginger all read as sweet to your taste buds, so use these liberally in your quest for lower-sugar baked goods. For best flavor, buy cinnamon sticks and whole nutmeg, and use a Microplane to grind to order. You'll get infinitely more of a flavor boost than with preground dried spices.

8. Orange juice and pineapple juice concentrates.
These juice concentrates make a good, tangy, bright source of sweetness for sorbets, ice creams, and baked goods such as pound cakes and cookies. They are not quite as versatile as apple and grape juice concentrates, which have less of an acidic component to them, but they are still a valuable sweetener in your no-sugar baking list of ingredients.

9. Dates.
Learning to bake with dates was a revelation for me. I've tasted dates wrapped in bacon and almonds at fancy dinner parties, and I've had date nut breads and sticky toffee puddings made with dates. But never did I think of them as such a versatile sweetener in pastries. I use plump, soft Medjool dates in my baking; if you don't have a good source for these, you can substitute another type of date. Because of the size variations in different dates, be sure you measure the amount you use in these recipes by volume or weight. Dates have a skin that gets tough and leathery with age. Before using them I soak them in some hot water and a little baking soda, which softens and dissolves the skin. Store dates in an airtight container
at cool room temperature for up to 6 months or in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.

10. Other dried fruits.
Raisins, apples, apricots, peaches, prunes, and pears are all accessible dried fruits that offer a concentrated natural sugar source. I chop and add them to batters and cookies to give a hit of sweetness to the final product. Store dried fruits in airtight containers at cool room temperature for up to 6 months or in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.

11. Agave nectar.
Agave is a sweetener that comes from the agave plant (the same plant that gives us tequila). In its purest form, when it is derived from the sap of the agave and boiled down to concentrate the sweetness, it is similar to maple syrup. However, what is commercially available to us is not as natural as you might think. The process by which the agave plant is converted to create nectar is similar to that used to create high-fructose corn syrup. So while it is a sugar alternative darling for some, it turns out that most agave nectars contain the same amount of refined fructose as that found in high-fructose corn syrup.

12. Stevia.
This South American herb has been used as a sweetener for centuries in many countries. It was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a low-calorie sweetener substitute here in the United States. It has zero calories, its glycemic index is zero, and it is extremely sweet, so you don't need very much to sweeten your coffee or tea. It does not act like sugar in baking, so it is best used to sweeten fruits, cereals, and frozen treats.

13. Coconut and coconut milk.
Unsweetened coconut and unsweetened coconut milk both have a natural sweetness that I love for baking and cooking. Unsweetened shredded or grated coconut has a much chewier texture than the fluffy white sweetened stuff you are used to seeing on the grocery shelves. It's not quite as easy to add to cookies if you are expecting that soft chewy texture coconut typically brings to a cookie or cake; however, using a little bit for flavor makes non-sugar desserts subtly sweet. Unsweetened coconut milk is rich and creamy and faintly sweet. Use it in puddings and ice creams and as a substitute for whole milk in baked goods.

14. Bananas.
All fruits are sweet but because of their starch-like, non-juicy texture, bananas are especially valuable as a sugar substitute when baking. Super-ripe bananas that have turned black on the outside and are soft and mushy inside are so full of natural sugars that when you freeze them, they don't freeze solid because of all their sugar content. They even lower the freezing point of frozen desserts
(see page 18)
. We use this to our advantage to make a few creamy frozen treats in the Fruit Is Sweet chapter. Store bananas in a cool, dry place and wait until they are mottled with black before you use them to bake. If you can't use them right away, peel them and store in an airtight container in the freezer until you are ready to use.

15. Fresh fruit.
Incorporating fresh or quick- frozen fruit to certain batters and doughs lends sweetness to these treats, allowing you to minimize the amount of added sugar. It should go without saying, but you want to only use ripe, sweet fruit when baking to maximize flavor. Fruits that I love to bake with include apples, pears, all berries, and stone fruits like peaches, plums, nectarines, and cherries. Melons and grapes are wonderfully sweet as well and can be made into refreshing sorbets, smoothies, and fruit soups.

16. Coconut sugar or coconut palm sugar.
This sugar substitute is derived from the sap of young cut flower buds of the coconut palm tree that will eventually become coconuts. It tastes a little bit like light brown sugar and can be substituted one to one for brown or white sugar in baking. I don't use coconut sugar here as I tried to stick to substitutes that you can find in any standard grocery store, but you can buy it online very easily.