Stevia

[Rosemary]

In an attempt to cut down on sugar without completely eliminating it (which works until it completely backfires), I think my new policy will be to only eat baked goods made my myself - because they will have a lot less sugar and fat in them.

And to reduce sugar still more, I'd like to experiment with stevia. I've heard people say that various brands are bitter or have a metallic taste, so I'd like to know (a) if anyone has found a brand that they like, and (b) if anyone has experimented with stevia in baked or cooked recipes.

Thanks!

[Float On]

I'm one who loves sweets and knows I need to make some big changes in my diet but I'm leary of fake or changed sugars - tend to get headaches from them. I've been watching some of the Christina Cooks on our PBS station. Last night she was making chocolate things for valentines day. The chocolate chip cookie reciepe has these ingredients. I'm curious if anyone here has baked using brown rice syrup, almond milk, or avocado oil. Watching her make these cookies took less than 10 minutes and were very easy to blend, no waiting for the butter to soften, no eggs, etc.

3 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch sea salt
1 cup brown rice syrup
1/3 cup almond milk
1/3 cups orange juice
2 teaspoons fresh grated orange rind
1/4 cups avocado oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pecans-coarsely diced
1 cup malt-sweetened, non-dairy chocolate chips


There may be more options out there for natural sweetners by searching more for vegan ideas. http://www.christinacooks.com/

[SoSimple]

I tried stevia in the past and found the aftertaste too much (it is kind of like bitter licorice). DH bought some stevia extract recently, though, and I have to admit it is a vast improvement over stevia of yesteryear. Look for truvia brand (there's another one also, but I don't recall the name and truvia is the one DH picked up).

[ApatheticNoMore]

It's hard to regard it as a sugar replacement because well it's really not. I haven't baked with it though.

It does make quite a decent lemonade (could not tell the difference!), and works in some herbal teas (mainly the bitter ones like passion tea, that need a bit of sweetness). I've used in to take the edge off pure 100% cranberry juice too. So for drinks I do think it can work. For other things I don't know, it tastes highly artificial (though it's no more artificial than sugar, it just doesn't have that natural taste of sugars :P). A little was on my spoon while eating some lentil soup a few weeks ago, it's like bizarre (remember it's much sweeter than sugar), what IS that taste? OH .....

I have NOW stevia extract (though I'm not brand loyal, it was probably cheapest :P), refined white powdery stuff. The raw leaves themselves have an aftertaste of Satan, I mean really that aftertaste .....

[loosechickens]

WAAAAHHHHH......until we ran into a night of heavy frost, and forgot to bring our stevia plant inside, we had our own "natural" stevia. It's easy to grow, is a pretty pot plant, and you can grow it in a sunny window in northern climates.

We have to find another one (got the first one from an herb vendor at a farmer's market in Prescott AZ) or try to get some seeds.

If you don't mind little green flecks in your baked goods.....(never bothered us), just plucking the leaves and drying them, then crumbling them and storing in a jar, is great.

I just don't trust the process that makes a nice, sweet tasting green leaf into a sterile white powder. But the dried and crumbled leaves were wonderful, added just the right amount of sweetness to things and no aftertaste at all. Although I did notice an aftertaste with the leaves if you tried to use them fresh....a real "weedy" taste and a little bitter. But all that went away when you dried the leaves and then used them.

Stevia may have been being used for 5,000 years, but I bet for almost all of those years, people were just drying and crumbling up leaves, not factory producing white powders or little bottles of liquid.

I really, really, really miss my stevia plant. But it just did NOT have a sense of humor the night of the heavy frost, and gave up the ghost, turned up its toes and DIED.....

[Rosemary]

I'll have to look up growing conditions for the plant. We have a very short season here, but there's a huge plant sale in the spring that always has a lot of herbs, so I might be able to grow a plant and bring it inside for the winter.

I'm not thinking of using just stevia for baking - but rather as using it to replace half of the sugar. I'll have to experiment and see what works. I already use a fairly low amount in most of my cooking.

Float On - regarding the ingredients you mentioned - almond milk I've used, and it can be directly subbed for dairy or soy milk. I did some research on sweeteners a few months ago and I believe rice syrup is primarily maltose, which has a really high glycemic index, so I've not used it. I use canola oil for baking, but always reduce the amount. If I were going to try that recipe, I'd do it first without buying any special ingredients, and I'd cut the quantities in half.
This was my summary of data on sweeteners: http://rosemaryevergreen.blogspot.com/2010/04/health-news-and-whole-foods-diet.html

[Float On]

Rosemary - thanks for the link to your blog and your summary on sweeteners! Very helpful!

[loosechickens]

In almost all recipes, you can use half the amount of sugar called for and it will still taste fine. May be a little less sweet than you're used to, but your taste buds will adjust easily, and you can probably bypass the stevia altogether.

after our stevia plant bit the dust in the 'great chill', rather than use sugar or the powdered stevia, I made a concerted effort to just eliminate sweetening in things I normally put the stevia in, such as my morning oatmeal. For the first week, my oatmeal tasted more like library paste, by the second week, not too bad, and in less than a month, I found that the subtle taste of the oats themselves tasted really great, and now, if someone were to sweeten my oatmeal, I wouldn't even want it.

Just an idea........

[Rosemary]

loosechickens - yes, I already cut sugar by 1/2 to 2/3 in everything I bake. I'd like to reduce it more. And I don't sweeten my oatmeal (other than with fruit) or my tea.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well maybe I'll try growing a plant, since I like to experiment with edibles in general. The aftertaste of Satan was eating non-dried leaves plucked fresh off a plant at the nursery in the herbs section (they often seem to carry stevia), it was sweet and then RETCH. So I need to dry them and that was the problem ;) How do you dry them, in the sun, in the oven, or just let them sit around for awhile?

[earthshepherd]

I am waiting for an order of stevia rebaudiana seeds from Amazon. I am really looking forward to growing and harvesting it this year. The seed literature says to dry the leaves either out in the sunshine or inside in the oven or a dehydrator. I hope it's as easy as it sounds. Loosechickens, your account is very encouraging!

[loosechickens]

well, we're usually in the southwest somewhere, so just spread the leaves out on a drying tray in the front window of the motorhome, wait a couple days until they are dry and crisp, then just crumble into a jar for storage.

If you're in a more humid climate, heating your oven to say 200 degrees, then turning the oven off and putting a tray with leaves in there would probably work well....or to use a food dehydrator. I've never really had to resort to that, and have just dried them on a tray, but anyway you would dry herbs would work.

Then I just used them in recipes in the same way you'd use dried herbs of some other type......stirred a spoonful into my muffin batter, sprinkled some on my oatmeal (before I learned to eat my oatmeal plain), put some into lemonade (a little strange with green bits in your lemonade, but it worked.........