Reducing Sugar in Recipes - It's Possible! (Here's How It Works for Me)

 

Many years ago - long-time readers will remember this - I did a massive amount of low-carb dieting. (Not to lose weight, which was a good thing, as I didn't, but to see if it would help morning sickness, which it did.) 

My long-term conclusion, based on my experiences, is that despite its use in curbing severe morning sickness, severe carb restriction was - for me, at least - nearly impossible to maintain over the long-term. I'm no longer in favor of "keto for life" approaches. 

(I am totally fine with dietary approaches that include low-carb cycling, such as Trim Healthy Mama or forms of intermittent fasting. I also believe that keto can have a very important role in healing disease states. I just am not a fan of the "everyone should be keto, all the time, for life" philosophy. Additionally, after one gets over gloating over the delectable seething-with-butter-and-bacon dinner recipes, keto is a fairly miserable experience, especially in the long run. I know the this-is-so-wonderful romance stage of beginner keto, but after it's over, oh boy is it over. When I finished up with my several years of keto, I ended up obsessively eating sweet potatoes at every meal for close to a year - yes, breakfast-lunch-dinner - and I've been in love with pasta ever since. No more keto for me, if I can avoid it.) 

However! One of the huge benefits of a time of low-carb living was that my sense of sweetness was completely re-set, and I finally understood why many foreigners find American desserts unpleasantly oversweet. It's because we Americans make crazy-oversweet desserts!

Since then, I've been on a quest (1) to find less-sweet desserts (being that I, too, like dessert!), and (2) to lower sugar levels in my existing recipes.

(I also find that super-sweet desserts now make me sick - quite literally. Not sure why - probably should find out - but there's nothing fun about being sick for hours - or all night - because I've chosen to eat dessert. Lowering sugar is a better way.)

Finding low-sugar recipes on the internet is both difficult and complicated, because different people mean different things when they say "low sugar." Many people consider anything without white sugar to be "sugar-free" or "low sugar." It may have three cups of honey in it, but it's sugar-free because it has no white sugar! (Definitely not what I'm looking for.) 

Also, many people develop "low sugar" recipes simply by removing the sugar and replacing it with a sugar replacement, usually a 1:1 sugar-alcohol mix. I prefer not to use these sugar replacements, for two reasons (1) they are slightly less expensive than antique silver, by weight, and (2) the slightest overindulgence in such things can induce violent illness (just ask me - I've been down that road). My husband tends to be super-sensitive to those products, as well, and can feel ill after eating just the smallest bit of xylitol or erythritol. Overall, they're just not worth it for us.

(Plain liquid or powdered stevia works great for us as a sweetener, and we use it daily in our coffee, but it is no good in baking, as it lacks all of the additional chemical and structural characteristics of sugar that are necessary in baking. Additionally, at high concentrations, stevia has an unpleasant bitterness - our family still talks about the ice cream that I made with several teaspoons of liquid stevia in it. It's one of my only creations that even I've refused to eat.)

And now, back to cooking - not with non-white sugars, or fake sugars, but simply with less sugar.

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Here are my findings:

(1) With most American recipes, most of which have far more sugar than they need for structure and texture, you can reduce sugar by one-quarter to one-third without negatively affecting the outcome. With some recipes that have really gone nuts on the sugar, you can reduce sugar by half - or even more. 

(2) Sugar reduction is easiest in puddings, custards, cheesecakes, ice creams, and sauces.

(3) Sugar reduction is usually fine (using the one-quarter to one-third reduction rule) in muffins, quickbreads, cakes, etc. If I reduce sugar by enough that I'm nervous about the structure of the finished product (because reducing sugar can reduce the moisture of the finished product), I  compensate by adding extra moisture in the form of sour cream, coconut milk, banana puree, extra fats (butter, oil), or whatever happens to be standing by and looks good. For example, I recently reduced the sugar in a zucchini bread recipe by 75% - and to make up for the lost moisture, added banana puree into the mix. It was a delightful success, and I include the recipe at the end of this post. 

(4) Sugar reduction is much riskier in cookies and candies, so I usually don't try it with those - or with any recipe that depends strongly on sugar for structure, color, etc.

(5) I cannot overstate the role of experimentation in this process. When I try a recipe, I give a guess as to how much sugar I can subtract - and if it's a success (and it nearly always is), I make a note of it, and then try to take it lower the next time. Experimentation is easy - and lots of fun. 

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Two recipes from my childhood have lately been great successes with sugar reduction:

Jewish Apple Cake (from Cooking Light) - This was an Easter morning favorite from my childhood - but 1 1/2 cups of sugar (plus another 1/4 cup for the topping) seemed a bit much. I reduced the in-the-cake sugar to 3/4 cup, and increased the cream cheese from 6 oz. to 8 oz. to account for any lost moisture (which saves having leftover cream cheese, too!). The result was amazing - and honestly, it was still a bit too sweet. Next year I will take the sugar even lower and add perhaps a bit more butter.

Lemon-Swirled Cheesecake (Cooking Light) - Growing up, this was our Easter dessert. (I learned to cook with Cooking Light - thanks, guys!) I hadn't made it in years, but wanted to try it again this year - but again, the sugar! Yikes! (1 3/4 cups in the cheesecake, 2 T. in the crust, and however much is in the 8 oz. of lemon curd - probably something like 2 1/2 cups total in one cheesecake!) Thus, with this one, I got brutal. I left the lemon curd alone - mainly because I already had lemon curd in the freezer that I wanted to use up - but reduced the sugar in the crust from 2 T. to 1 T., and the sugar in the cheesecake batter from 1 3/4 cups to 3/4 cup. Yes, you read rightly - an over 50% reduction. Things got crazy in the kitchen all day. Then I watched to see how guests reacted - yes, I made this for guests, not smart - and... (drumroll, please!)... it was a complete hit. Delightfully and lightly sweetened, without being sickeningly sweet. 

I realize that both of the above recipes were "healthy living" recipes from the nineties, when fat was considered oh-so-evil, but sugar was pretty much given a free pass. These recipes really reflect that philosophy - which has mainly passed by, I think. 

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Around here, sugar reduction in recipes has on the whole been wildly successful. (And again, my family is my testing ground - especially my husband, who is extremely suspicious of anything labeled "healthy" - which, admittedly, is somewhat my fault, considering the number of atrocious recipes that I've tried to foist on the family over the years in the name of health. Tomato-free "spaghetti sauce" and coconut-flour pizza crust come to mind. Oh, the horrors.)

One more link:

Blueberry Ricotta Cheese Cake - I reduced the sugar by 50%, from 2/3 cup to 1/3 cup. It was wonderful!

And one recipe that I plan to try soon (and will come back to post notes when I do!):

My Secret, Less-Sweet Fluffy Vanilla Frosting (also called ermine frosting)

I can't wait to try this.

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And the promised lower-sugar zucchini bread recipe, altered from Zucchini Bread IV on allrecipes.com. I reduced the sugar by 75%, compensated for moisture loss by adding banana puree, increased the zucchini, and also added more baking powder (because 1/8 tsp. per loaf seemed rather pointless). It was a huge hit with our family.

Best Not-Too-Sweet Zucchini Bread

Yield: 2 (8x4-inch) loaves

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup banana puree

2-4 cups grated zucchini

2 teaspoons vanilla 

3 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup chopped walnuts (opt.)

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease two loaf pans.

Beat eggs in a large bowl until light and frothy. Add sugar and oil and banana puree; mix until well combined. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, nuts, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and baking powder; stir into egg mixture until incorporated. Divide batter into the prepared pans.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of each loaf comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes.

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Enjoy, everyone!

(And please, do let me know your own tips for creating lower-sugar recipes!)