Cakes, breads and other pastries require a certain balance of flour, fat, and sugar to get the proper fluffiness, moisture, and sweetness to get the much sought after "mmmm" of recognition. When you bake the sugar-free way, you tend to lose that necessary ingredient to get this texture and taste. Unfortunately sugar substitutes may to a certain degree cover the "sweet" aspect of glucose based sugar, but it does not complete the other two requirements of fluffiness and moisture.
One thing that I learned which has been quite a saviour for my baked goodies, leaving me with happy belly and low glycemic index is from Marlene Koch's "Desserts Sensationnels avec Splenda" (I have the French version) but in English "Unbelievable Desserts with Splenda". She surprisingly includes sugar in her "sugar-free" recipes - scandalous! As she explains, the teaspoon to tablespoon of sugar allows the baked goods to regain the texture and fullness of fully sugared treats. The spoons of sugar do increase the sugar load but, as she writes, what is harmful for Diabetics are the CUPS of sugar in recipes. The small spoonfuls will have a lesser effect on blood glucose levels.
While I do agree with this to a certain degree, I still opt for fruit based sugars to sweeten up my goodies. For example, apple sauce is able to replace moisture as well as sweetness (but watch out because too much can make quite a mushy dense pastry); sugar-free jams usually have enough sweetness in themselves to easily replace the spoonful of sugar; lastly a spoon of honey works well, as honey is a low glycemic index sweetener (more on G.I. in another post) therefore it doesn't raise blood glucose levels as quickly as table sugar does.
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