why would you cut out the refined sugar and keep the refined flour? (which is just another form of sugar)

sucanat

I've experimented with my favorite baking and suggest you do the same. Sometimes baking is a bit dissappointing, though.

To replace with honey use way less than the amount of sugar the recipe calls for. Fructose is outrageously sweet so you use tiny quantities. In a lot of my baking I use prune paste or apple sauce in place of fats, which also lets me cut down on sugar as they're sweet. Also, check out some diabetic recipies -- some of them are good. But I would discourage much replacing sugar with splenda or any junk like that.

I used to make muffins all the time with frozen apple juice concentrate.

Keep in mind that if you are substituting a wet ingredient (apple juice) for a dry one (sugar) you will have to add more of another dry ingredient to keep the mixture the right consistency; a little more flour works fine. And undersweeten your confections in general.

And whole wheat flour will not cause your blood sugar to jump like with white flour. As far as your body is concerned, white flour IS sugar.

another book to check out on it:

(im not the seller)

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Enjoy 280 pages featuring 545 delicious recipes to help you enjoy whole natural foods. No refined sugar, no refined white flour. Olive oil used in many recipes.

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Honey
Maple Syrup
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speaking as a cook: in some recipes, cookies being a good example, sugar does more than just sweeten. It's crystalline structure helps 'cut' the fat (butter) to give it the texture we love (it's called mouthfeel in the cooking biz.)

So using stevia, apple juice, splenda, whatever will SWEETEN the item but not let it rise properly or feel the same.

For my diabetic friend I use splenda and whip/beat the batter more tham usual trying to incorporate more air bubbles to get it to rise properly. For cookies the TEMPERATURE of the butter is critical. it has to be almost room temp so the cookies will spread in the oven. Also make sure the oven is at the full temperature and heated up before you put the cookies in - I've preheated the pans too on occasion when I had a really stubborn batter.

Swtiching to non refined flour will also inhibit spread - be sure to add more moisture to help the bigger molecules moe and spread.

Honey adds moisture, but is not as sweet as sugar - you may want to up it with stevia too. Honey also brings flavors to the party ( love that bee vomit!) Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it gives a woody taste that's not appropriate. It's also not a one to one replacement.

hope this helps

Agave, wonderful agave. I am just starting to cook w/ it. I'm using half to a third of what I would have used for honey. Mostly I use it in tea and on my Irish oatmeal.

was chatting with a guy in a health food store a while back...he mentioned trying xylitol as a sugar replacement. especially since it measures like sugar. great for people with the habit of two spoons of sugar in the morning cup of coffee or what have you.