Joanne ChangBaking with Less Sugar: Recipes for Desserts Using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-No White Sugar

I love this book. Let me say that again — I love this book.I have both the kindle and the physical book.The hard back book has wonderful features. I love the texture of the cover and the way the pages are organized.I love the links inside the kindle book allowing me to jump from various recipes to other items needed (like a pie crust).RECIPES — GLUTEN FREE NO SUGAR LIFE:When we purchased this book we were facing a major health crisis. We were gluten free and completely off sugar (honey was only consumed for allergies). We were headed into another holiday season with NO BAKED GOODS. (As much as this isn’t the end of the earth, every holiday was missing something.)This book provides amazing recipes that can easily go gluten free or are already gluten free. Combine this with the alternate sweeteners (honey, dates, maple syrup, etc) and I truly felt like I found paradise.RECIPES — Regular life:Thankfully we’re back to enjoying small quantities of gluten and sugar. And, even though I could use other recipes I’ve loved my entire life … I continuously pick this book up. It’s by far my favorite baking book!Top 3 Recipes:#1: Maple-Pumpkin Pie (and the crust)Are there words for this pie? No. It’s rich, smooth, and tasty. I’ve made it every year for the last FIVE YEARS. It’s now expected and required at our Thanksgiving table.#2: Warm Apple Raisin CrispThis is everything you want to enjoy in the fall. The texture and flavor are a perfect balance of fresh and sweet.#3: Yellow Birthday CakeThis cake was the first thing I made from the book — and I made it gluten free in my (at that time) new lodge fluted cake pan. I preheated the cast iron, ran my stick of butter around it melting the butter and coating the sides, then added the batter. The results were out of this world! Although I now make it with four, I still use my cast iron — it turns out perfectly, every single time (even when I’ve messed up the directions).

First day I immediately looked to see what I could bake with ingredients on hand and decided on the Pain D'Espices (Spice Bread). It was sweetened with honey and used whole wheat flour, yum!Second I baked the Apple-Walnut-Maple Cake. The only difficulty I had was trying to figure out how to translate the called for 3 medium apples to my 3 large. I settled on 2 1/2 apples but it seemed like a lot of apples for the batter. Baked it anyway and it looks and tastes simply amazing, so moist and maple-y flavored, mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm.Please don't let other less favorable reviews stop you from buying this book. It's beautifully written and photographed and it's exactly what it says, baking with less sugar. The recipes also make ample use of more healthy substitutes like honey, maple syrup, fruit, fruit juices, spices, etc. You'll love this book!!

I have enjoyed the recipes in the book we have tried so far. I agree with some of the other reviews which question categorizing this book as featuring truly healthy recipes, but it's a terrific alternative to desserts that are drowning in sugar. We just had the blueberry nectarine pie and loved it. There is still a stick of butter in the crust which is made with white processed flour, but the sugar is limited to four tablespoons, considerably less than most pie recipes which can often range from 1/2 cup to one cup of sugar. The frozen Greek yogurt has become a staple in our house, as it can be prepped in just five minutes before going into the ice cream maker. If the fruit is sweet enough, I often don't even need to add any sweetener at all. I did find the tropical tapioca to be too sweet for my taste, but modified it by eliminating the apple juice concentrate and adding in just a small amount of organic honey.I think many of us have grown up with our food chock full of sugar, and it's nice to find out that food can be just as tasty or even better by cutting down the sugar. These will continue to be just once in a while treats in our house, but I do like baking with less sugar or by using natural sweeteners.

The banana bread was very good, and only used 6 tbsp of sugar but really tasted delicious. Great cookbook

So, we are great fans of Joanne Chang and her Flour Cookbook and Flour Too. I think her recipes are very well explained, there are adequate pictures, and if you follow the recipe as laid out, I don't know how you can have a failure. We have made almost everything in the two first books,so we decided to try the Baking with Less Sugar and found the same great results. It is always a good idea to completely read through a new recipe before attempting it, so you can figure out questions ahead of time. We did not notice the desserts "spoiling" sooner than usual, because they are never left over for very long! We visited Boston last year and made a beeline to one of her bakeries - what a treat!