Sugar: It’s at the core of every celebration, serves as an instant pick-me-up on bad days and, in general, just makes life a little bit sweeter.
It’s also at the center of my baking addiction. While some may find the practice of yoga or meditation calming, when I feel stressed out I take solace in my KitchenAid. Weeks rarely go by when I don’t make cupcakes, cookies or even ice cream — with my friends and colleagues happily enjoying the results.
So I was a little skeptical when I came across the latest baking book from America’s Test Kitchen, “Naturally Sweet: Bake All Your Favorites with 30% to 50% Less Sugar” (America’s Test Kitchen, out now). After all, what’s the point of baked goods without sugar? That’s like french fries without ketchup, or “The O.C.” without Marissa Cooper — it just doesn’t work.
The book takes a number of standard baked goods — from blueberry muffins and apple pie to oatmeal-raisin cookies and red-velvet cupcakes — and removes up to half of the sugar normally found in their traditional recipes. It achieves this by eliminating refined, granulated sugar and replacing it instead with “natural sweeteners,” albeit at a much lower dose.
Some of the natural sweeteners are pantry staples — think maple syrup and honey — while others are a bit more exotic: Sucanat, coconut sugar and date sugar are not typically stocked at the corner bodega (but they are available at Whole Foods, where they cost nearly twice as much as regular sugar).
I tried three of the recipes in “Naturally Sweet”: the chocolate cake, the chocolate-chip cookies and the fresh-fruit tart. The results were mixed (see my reviews below), but I had questions about the book’s premise: Is removing 4 grams of sugar from a batch of peanut-butter cookies so vital to your health? Do you need to trash all the Domino Sugar in your pantry and splurge on “natural” alternatives?
Yes and no, say experts.
Most people look at nutrition labels and are wary of calories and fat content — but it turns out sugar may be the greatest health risk of all.
“Sugar is two molecules together, glucose and fructose, and it’s the fructose molecule that’s the problem,” says Robert Lustig, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist and author of “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.” “When you consume the fructose, it all goes to the liver because it’s the only organ that can metabolize it. It has a limited ability to do so, and if you exceed that point, the liver has to turn the fructose into something else it can deal with — fat.”
This fat can lead to Type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and heart disease; excess sugar has also been proved to cause tooth decay.
What “Naturally Sweet” gets right is limiting the dose of sugar, no matter the form. Take the recipe for a chocolate layer cake, for example. For a two-layer, 9-inch, round cake, the recipe calls for either slightly more than 1 cup of Sucanat, 1 ¼ cups coconut sugar or a scant cup of granulated sugar. Martha Stewart’s recipe for a chocolate cake of the same size, by contrast, calls for 3 cups of sugar.
“Reducing your total daily dose of sugar is the key,” says Lustig.
On the other hand, any supposed health benefits of the sugar substitutions are “complete hogwash,” says Lustig. Natural sweeteners still have the fructose molecule, and thus, still pose a risk to your health; they just offer a depth of flavor not found in granulated sugar, which allows bakers to get away with using less without sacrificing taste.
But be aware that these “natural sweeteners” are not always easy to use. Sucanat comes packaged in large granules that need to be ground before being used in baking. As a result, I found myself spending nearly an hour pulverizing it by hand in my single-serving mortar and pestle.
Instead, Lustig recommends simply cutting one-third of the granulated sugar out of any recipe. “You won’t lose the texture, and it will actually taste better,” he says. And you’ll save yourself a lot of time and money by doing that instead of shelling out for these alternatives.
Still, I will be more cognizant of how much sugar I’m using going forward, and will scale back as Lustig recommends. After all, I bake to make my friends, family and colleagues happy — not to send them to an early grave.
Less is more: Rating the recipes
Fresh fruit tart with mascarpone and honey
This was the biggest disappointment of the bunch. My first stab at the tart’s crust — which is sweetened with Sucanat — would not work; it was way too sticky and impossible to roll out. I had better results the second time around. The filling was another disaster: My first two attempts curdled, while my third produced a smooth and creamy custard. Unfortunately, it didn’t thicken as much as I had hoped, and it was so runny the fruit sank sadly into it. In the end, the crust was grainy and the filling a soupy mess, even if it did have 16 fewer grams of sugar per serving. But this may not entirely be the recipe’s fault, as I was baking in the middle of a heat wave in a kitchen that was well over 100 degrees.
Chocolate-chip cookies
I definitely have a sweet tooth, and after sampling the raw cookie dough, I had high hopes that this recipe would satisfy my cravings. However, the final product was a bit of a letdown. I loved the soft texture, but I felt like something was missing. The Sucanat gives the cookies more of a molasses flavor, which, while still tasty, makes this a different cookie in my eyes. But, if you prefer your desserts to not be sickeningly sweet (there’s 10 fewer grams of sugar per cookie), you’ll likely go wild for these — my co-workers ate them up in minutes and raved about them for days.
Chocolate layer cake
If you like your cakes rich, fudgy and moist, throw out whatever hack recipe you’ve been using and switch to this one, stat. With its nutty, caramel notes, the coconut sugar elevated the flavor to something deeper than just chocolate — as did the generous amount of coffee added to the batter. The frosting was creamy and rich, and it took a lot of willpower not to lick the bowl clean. The final product had 39 grams of sugar per serving, about 30 grams less than a slice of traditional chocolate cake.
1¹/₄ cups coconut sugar
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
²/₃ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1¹/₂ cups hot brewed coffee
1¹/₂ cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
³/₄ cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
4 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Creamy chocolate frosting
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup coconut sugar
4 large egg whites
¹/₈ teaspoon salt
3 sticks (24 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cubed and softened
First, make the cake. Place oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, line with parchment paper, grease parchment paper, and flour pans. Working in batches, grind coconut sugar in a spice grinder until a fine powder, about 1 minute.
Place chocolate and cocoa in a medium bowl, add coffee, and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate mixture until completely cool, about 20 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk ground coconut sugar, flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
Whisk oil, eggs, vinegar and vanilla into cooled chocolate mixture until smooth. Add flour mixture and whisk until smooth.
Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans. Bake until cakes are set and center is just firm to touch, 20 to 22 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking. Let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans, discard parchment, and let cool completely on wire rack, about 1 hour.
To make the frosting, microwave chocolate in a bowl, stirring occasionally, until melted, about 4 minutes. Stir in vanilla and let cool, about 10 minutes.
Combine coconut sugar, egg whites and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Set over saucepan filled with 1 inch of barely simmering water. Whisking gently but constantly, heat mixture until foamy and slightly thick, and registers 150 degrees, about 8 minutes.
Fit stand mixer with whisk attachment and whip warm sugar mixture on medium speed until slightly cooled and has consistency of shaving cream, about 2 minutes. Add butter, one piece at a time, and whip until smooth and creamy.
Once all butter is added, add cooled chocolate mixture and mix until combined. Increase speed to medium-high and whip until light, fluffy and well-combined, about 2 minutes.
Place one cake layer on platter and spread 1 cup frosting evenly over top. Top with second cake layer, press lightly to adhere, then spread 1 cup frosting evenly over top. Spread remaining frosting evenly over sides of cake.
Alternate sweeteners
Though no better for you than the processed stuff, these five “natural” substitutes offer stronger flavor — so you can get away with using less and still have a sweet treat.
Sucanat: Whole cane sugar made by extracting the juice from sugar cane, its molasses flavor packs a punch. Most recipes call for the granules to be ground into a powder. Substitute for refined sugar based on weight, not volume. $7.99 for a 2 lb. bag (all prices from Whole Foods)
Coconut sugar: Produced from the sap of flower buds from the coconut palm, coconut sugar is available in crystal, block or liquid form. And it doesn’t really taste like coconut; instead, it imparts a nutty, caramel-like flavor, but is more mild than Sucanat. As with Sucanat, substitutions for refined sugar should be based on weight, not volume. $6.99 for a 1 lb. bag
Date sugar: Made by pulverizing dried dates into a powder, date sugar has more nutrients than other sweeteners. Because it absorbs more liquid than refined sugar, be sure to adjust the volume of added liquids; it works best in fruit-focused breads and cakes. $6.99 for a 1/2 lb. bag
Maple syrup: Typically used atop pancakes and waffles, it can also be employed as a substitute for refined sugar in muffins, breakfast bars, cakes and even frozen yogurt. It also works well for making caramel. $8.99 for 12 ozs.
Honey: If you want to use honey as your sweetener, know that its strong flavor will dominate the end result. It works best in breakfast pastries and liquid mixtures, such as custards and curds. $5.69 for 12 ozs.