Baking with Stevia requires a lot of trial and error. We have made about a dozen batches all with different ingredients trying to make the best cookie. Because Stevia is so sweet you only use a tiny amount and then have to add something to add moisture and replace the bulk of the sugar.
Our first attempt was to make cookies following the exact same recipe on the chocolate chip bag except we just added Stevia instead of sugar using the proper conversion ratio. We liked them a lot although they were dry and white....almost more like a sweet biscuit than a cookie. Since then I have learned that baking with Stevia requires a 25% reduction in dry ingredients or else an addition of something to add moisture such as applesauce, yogurt, peanut butter, etc... You can get creative...we have! In one recipe we used applesauce but the liquid boils out of the cookie and makes a shiny smooth outer surface on the cookie almost like a bagel. It also changed the flavor significantly. In one batch we added chia gel which is just soaked chia seeds that get very gelatinous. Those cookies had the best texture and the chia gel didn't change the flavor at all.
Last night I decided to use apple butter because in making apple butter most of the liquid is boiled out already so I was hoping it would make the cookies moist without the boil-off affect of applesauce. Success! Those were the best of all the cookies we've made so far! Also having the Stevia chocolate chips made them even better because we could eat them guilt-free! Here is the recipe:
2 sticks of butter at room temperature
1/2 cup of SteviaPlus
Mix together until creamy and fluffy. Then add
2 large eggs
1 tsp. alcohol-free vanilla (if you are on the Candida Diet)
1/4 c. apple butter (our apple butter was made with green apples and no sugar)
Beat together. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients.
1 cup Organic White Wheat Flour from Bob's Red Mill
1 cup oatmeal blended into a coarse flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix together until just blended. Add chocolate chips.
1/2 cup Kona Kava Stevia sweetened chocolate chips
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
Usually we have to press down the cookies because they are so dry but these were moist going on the pan and they spread out just enough! Enjoy!
this is amazing!! :) i'm on body ecology too!
ReplyDeleteI am now pregnant so I'm not on the body ecology diet but I have made enough changes that it's just the way we eat now. We use a lot of alternative grains (we make sorghum waffles at least once s week) and the only sugar added back to our diet is a little pure maple syrup and fruit. I don't crave sweets anymore! Instead of buying those expensive stevia chocolate chips, I buy unsweetened chocolate melt it and add liquid vanilla creme stevia to taste. Then I spread it on a cookie sheet, freeze it and brea k it into chunks for chocolate chunk cookies. Good luck to you!
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