Sugarless Baking
Written By: StephanieFarmer
HEALTHY GLUTEN FREE SUGAR FREE CARROT CAKE This Healthy Gluten Free Sugar Free Carrot Cake is SO moist and tender, you’ll never know it’s low carb, oil and butter free, made with Greek yogurt, only 170 calories and 5 WW Freestyle points! Perfect for Easter!
Continuing to obsess over baked goods that allow me to pretend like I’m eating a plate full of veggies.Well, only one kind of baked good: CARROT CAKE.I know it’s only been a hot minute since the gluten free carrot cake cupcakes, vegan gluten free dairy free carrot cake and easy healthy gluten free carrot cake muffins but TIS THE SEASON.Just making sure the Easter bunny has ALL the gluten free carrot cakery that he/she needs to experience this spicy-sweet, MOIST cake deliciousness no matter what kind of eating habits said bunny follows. Even if it’s a WILD bunny, I have gluten free oatmeal carrot muffins with GARAM MASALA for it.
Adventures in Sugar Free Baking Back in May it was my sweet Ava's first birthday! I spent a lot of time thinking a lot about her birthday cake. I knew that I absolutely wanted to make it myself. But looking through some of my favorite cake recipes, they have SO MUCH SUGAR. My favorite Chocolate Cake recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar, which equals about 4 teaspoons of sugar per cupcake... not including the frosting! I know what you're thinking. Here we go, another dietitian who wants to (literally) take candy away from a baby. But I swear, I'm really not THAT obsessed about having no sweets. No offense to parents that are. Kudos to you if you can successfully keep your kid away from sugar. But my sweet little girl comes from a family who loves their sweets, so it's just not in the cards for us. My philosophy, and hope, is that I can give my daughter enough beautifully, naturally sweet foods, so that when she's old enough to make her own decisions on what to eat, she just doesn't like the super-sweet stuff. There's a huge difference in sweetness between fruit & veggies and foods like cake, candy, and ice cream. I do believe there's a place for all these wonderful treats, but I want to teach my daughter that these things are just that: treats. Once-in-a-while foods, fun foods, and not daily desserts or after-school snacks. So, in anticipation for this epic first birthday cake, I started researching recipes using less sugar, natural sugar, or alternate sources of sugar. I still wanted the cake to be sweet, and taste like a cake, just more naturally sweet. Read on for tales of my sugar-free baking adventure!
Use less sugar? Some websites advise to just use less sugar (like here and here). Cut down on the amount of sugar in your recipe by 10%, 20%, even up to 50%. No need to replace it with anything. I wasn't sold. Some of my go-to cake recipes call for up to 2 cups of sugar, so cutting that down by 20 or 30% really wasn't going to make much of a difference. I was really hoping to find a very very low sugar or sugar-free recipe. I'll save this technique when baking for the grown-ups.
Use a more "natural" sugar? Another popular technique is to replace the refined, white sugar in your recipe with something more "natural", like maple syrup, honey, or agave syrup. You have to be careful with the amount of sweetener you use, because some are more or less sweet than sugar, and since these sweeteners are in a liquid form, you have to adjust the overall liquids in your recipe. Read more here. This wasn't the right approach for me either. While there may be some nutritional benefits to using some of these sweeteners (maple syrup contains some minerals like potassium, calcium, and magnesium), I still see these natural sugars as straight-up super sweet. I was fine to use them to add some extra oomph if needed, just not 100%
of the sweetness. Plus, these sweeteners are pretty expensive, and I'm not about to drop $20 to make a batch of cupcakes. Next!
Artificial sweeteners? You could pretty easily swap sugar for an artificial sweetener, like Splenda or Stevia, in baking. Again, just not the sort of message I was going for, and didn't seem appropriate for a first birthday party. I'm not trying to cut calories, just use a more natural sweetness rather than a super-sweet cake. The search continues!
30+ Tasty Sugar Free Desserts! (Gluten Free & Paleo) These sugar free desserts are so rich and flavorful that you won’t even know that there’s no sugar added! From decadent chocolate chia pudding and avocado mousse to colorful fruit tarts and healthy cookies, all of these recipes are the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth while maintaining a healthy diet. Plus they’re all gluten free, paleo and grain free as well! These no sugar recipes are allowed to use whole fruit like bananas or in some cases whole dates. For the most part these recipes rely on the natural sweetness of whole fruit or other ingredients without added sugar. Imagine This… ● Your daily sugar cravings GONE ● Your appetite normalized ● Being able to enjoy a sweet treat without it causing a sugar binge or cravings ● Having more energy and actually feeling ready and willing to get out and experience life ● Clearer skin when you look in the mirror in the morning ● Dropping down on the scale without much effort ● Enjoying the flavor of healthy foods again without having to add tons of salt or sugar
WHY USEHALFBUTTER, HALFCOCONUT OIL Typically, this cake starts with a hefty amount of butter. While I really love the flavor and richness that butter adds, I really like to cut down on the butter in this recipe and replace it with a plant-based fat. Coconut oil is a more sustainable and less processed source of fat, so it’s the perfect choice. With the combination of butter and coconut oil, you loose absolutely nothing and you still get the same flavor and fudge-like texture — but gain the added nutritional value of coconut oil.
HOWTO MAKEAFLOURLESS CHOCOLATECAKE WITHOUT THESUGAR Flourless chocolate cake normally includes a fair amount of sugar to sweeten up the cocoa powder. Well, instead of using sugar, I use a monkfruit-based sugar alternative called Lakanto Sugar in my Easy Sugar Free Flourless Chocolate Cake. If you prefer, you can use
Swerve, or coconut sugar, but I highly recommend you experiment with some kind of sugar alternative as this recipe is a great one to start with if you’re interested in sugar-free baking.
WHY DID MY FLOURLESSCAKE“FALL?” Since flourless chocolate cake is fudgy and rich, it’s on the flatter side. This cake should be about an inch and a half tall, and if it doesn’t “rise” up a lot that means you are doing nothing wrong! The cake will rise a bit in the baking process and form that iconic crackly crust on top, but it won’t expand all that much. After coming out of the oven the crust will even fall a bit, and give you a further crackle. This is exactly what you want. I actually think the over all look of my Easy Sugar Free Flourless Chocolate Cake is really sophisticated. Flourless chocolate cake is kept really simple when it comes to decoration. Since the cake is so fudgy and decadent, it really needs no frosting or topping. I like to simply dust the top with powdered sugar or cocoa powder, which ever you prefer! I do like to serve the sliced cake with a dollop of whipped cream, though, because the bright white against the dark chocolate is one of my favorite sweet sights to see! To make a dairy-free whipped cream, I use coconut cream with the solid white cream that rises to the top of a can of coconut milk. All you do to turn this cream into whipped cream is whip it up with a hand or stand mixture into a light fluffy topping. As the fat content of coconut cream is pretty high, though, it can easily melt — so I keep this whipped up in my fridge until it’s time to serve.
Easy Sugar Free Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe
Prep Time 25 mins
Cook Time 35 mins
Total Time 1 hr
My Easy Sugar Free Flourless Chocolate Cake is fudgy, rich, and just as delicious as the classic you're used to. Course: Dessert Cuisine: American Servings: 10 slices Calories: 259 kcal Author: Olivia Crouppen
Ingredients ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
1/2 cup (4floz/115ml) coconut oil, melted 1/2 cup (4oz/115g) butter, melted, and browned if desired 1 1/3 cups (8oz/225g) sugar free chocolate, chopped 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon salt, optional 1/4 teaspoon instant espresso powder, optional 1 cup (8oz/225g) Lakanto Sugar, Swerve, or coconut sugar 6 eggs, room temperature 1 cup (4oz/115g) cocoa powder 2 tablespoons powdered Lakanto Sugar, or cocoa powder, for dusting
Instructions 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) then line a 9 inch spring form pan with parchment paper, set aside. 2. In a large bowl combine the coconut oil and melted butter. Then, add the chocolate and melt it all in the microwave for 40 seconds. If you do not have a microwave you can do this over a bain marie. 3. Once the chocolate is melted whisk until smooth and shiny. 4. Whisk in the vanilla, salt, espresso powder, and Lakanto Sugar at this point. 5. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure it is fully incorporated between each addition. 6. Lastly, sift over the cocoa powder then fold it in with a spatula. 7. Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top has formed a nice crust and slightly risen.
8. Allow the cake to cool for about 10 minutes before releasing from the spring form pan. 9. Dust with Lakanto Powdered Sugar or cocoa powder for garnish and slice. 10. Cover and store the cake in the fridge for up to 4 days.