Using different sugars

As my regular followers will know I blog different foods out of necessity. So when I picked my items from Healthy Supplies this month I picked 2 different sugars as my daughter works with a lady that is diabetic and I thought it might be nice to try Xylitol sugar free sweetener

100% Natural Sugar Alternative

• Sweet & tasty like normal sugar.
• Has 75% less available carbohydrates than sugar.
• Suitable for weight management, diabetics & hypoglycemics.
• Low GI.
• Won't rot your teeth like normal sugar!.
• Resealable pouch!

Uses for xylitol

Xylitol can be used as a direct alternative for normal sugar. It can be put in your tea, cakes, cereals and over your fruit, in the same amounts as you would normal sugar.

Where does xylitol come from?

Xylitol occurs naturally. It can be extracted from fruits, vegetables, plants and trees. You may have originally heard of xylitol through the dentist or in dental products. This is because xylitol naturally protects the teeth by fighting cavities. This same xylitol is what we can also use as a sugar alternative

as well as

coconut sugar 

Coconut sugar is becoming well-known as a low-GI alternative to normal table sugar. This means that it releases energy more slowly into the body, resulting in less of a "sugar rush" and helping to keep the appetite under control.
The key to this low-GI-ness is the low sucrose content of coconut sugar. Table sugar is made from pure sucrose crystals, which are quickly broken down into fructose and glucose and absorbed by the body. Coconut sugar is 84% sucrose, and the rest comprised of more complex sugars which are absorbed more slowly.

in my normal baking to see how it fairs. I had a request from said daughter to make a dairy free cake ( not a proble as all my stuff is) for a leaving party at work as well as one suitable for a diabetic so she could join in.



lemon on the left and strawberry on the right

So I made a normal egg, marge, sugar flour sponge cake substitting these sugars for the normal sugar and my oh never suspected a thing. I made one lot into lemon buttercream fairy cakes and one lot into  strawberry buttercream.

My daughter and her friends were well impressed with the baking and said you would  not know it was friendly sugar that was in them, and like me they thought the lemon butter icing was unbelievable.

I also handed 2 of each fairy cake into a friend who has a diabetic father to make a Christmas cake for to try them out and again her and her husband were well impressed and found it hard to believe they were made using sugar substitutes.

So if you are pondering the idea, I would highly recommend you give these products a try as they are much friendlier than bog standard sugar which produce a very acceptable product.