Traybakes/biscuits/cake recipes which are low in sugar - help please!

[Millie1]

DS was recently diagnosed with diabetes and I need to find some new (and tasty) recipes to replace the sugar-laden biscuits/traybakes which I used to make. I spent last night going through recipe books but everthing (bar muffins which we do make) has fairly large amounts of sugar and I can't see how just halving it will leaving me with something edible at the end.

So, can anyone please help with some healthy, low sugar recipes? Oaty biscuits are good - I've just made some from the Diabetes UK cookbook and they're rotten so I don't think he'll eat them. All suggestions would be really welcome - we're relying on too many bought biccies at the moment and I'd like to get back to healthy, home-cooked fayre.

TIA

I am in a rush right now but I have a good banana cake recipe, plus a date muffin recipe, both with no sugar, which I will post for you later

Can ds have things like dates and fruit juice or are they too sweet? (please excuse ignorance of what diabetics can safely eat)

Thanks Franny - the banana bread, in particular, sounds great as the recipe I have is loaded with sugar (Nigella).

He can certainly have dates, fruit juice depends on whether or not it contains added sugars. No added sugars would be fine in small quantities (I think - I'm still learning ) but if it contains sugar then we would need to bypass it.

4 oz self raising wholemeal flour
half tsp mixed spice
2 oz butter
3 oz raisins
8 oz banana
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 180 / gm 4.

Mix flour and spice, rub in butter and stir in raisins. In a separate bowl, mash the banana and egg. Stir into the flour mixture and put into a well-greased tin (fills a small loaf tin I think or I usually double up the quantities and put it in an 8" circular cake tin). Turn oven down to GM 3 / 160 C and cook on the middle shelf for 1 hour or until cooked.

I usually cover it with a mixture of philadelphia cream cheese and fruit spread (about 2 parts cream cheese to one part fruit spread / jam). I blend them together in the liquidiser. However it is good just by itself as well. This recipe is pretty healthy as well as easy to make, but actually tastes very good. I've used it as a birthday cake before - it's lovely and sweet.

Sugar-free Muffins

8oz wholemeal s-r flour
pinch cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
2oz chopped pecans (I have left these out, or put in ground almonds, it's fine)
2 oz desiccated coconut
6 oz grated carrots
6 oz grated apple
3 oz chopped dates
2 beaten eggs
4 fl oz sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another, then combine and mix thoroughly. Spoon into muffin cases and put on a baking tray. Bake for 20 mins at 180 / GM 4. This recipe does taste fairly wholesome, but sweet and tasty as well. It makes a lumpy, chewy sort of muffin.

Hope these help and I will see if I can think of any more. Filly and NQC are good at low sugar baking, I will give them a shout as well.

Oh, Organix make quite tasty cereal bars in various flavours, which have no actual sugar in them. Depending on your son's age he might enjoy them as an occasional bought treat.

Franny - thank you! The banana cake sounds lovely and I'll give it a go over the weekend when my bananas go off! Yum! Shall also try the muffins at some point very soon.

Got some of those Organix bars today - we discovered a similar product - Fruitus bars (oats & fruit) and he loved them but got sick and hasn't touched them since so hopefully the Organix will prove to be a good standby.

WasWondering - yes, I have her book and it's great. She basically says to half the sugar quantity for diabetics and I've done that a few times. TBH, they don't just taste the same but I'll have to get used to that!

This thread involves lots of longer-term diabetics answering questions.

All these sweet things do still have sugar in them - from what I learned on that thread, if something has just sugar, or just white carb, and no fat or fibre, the sugars will be absorbed much more quickly. But sweets with fat and fibre in them produce less of a blood sugar spike.

So a hard candy is worse for you than (a tiny amount) of cheesecake, even if both of them have the same amount of sugar in them, iyswim.

I use a lot of baking recipes from this site. It has lots of healthy recipes alongside less healthy ones. I tend to then a) switch sugar to brown sugar, as it tastes sweeter, and has less sugar in it, iyswim b) use a bit less sugar c) change flour from all white to 50/50.

I use a carrot cake recipe from there, a courgette cake recipe, a pumpkin cake recipe. All of which have more fibre in them than normal cakes (even before I do the 50/50 white and brown thing), and hence the sugar is less of a hit.

Oh, and there's a really good oatmeal biscuit recipe in there. It does have sugar, but not that much, most of the sweetening is from the raisins. Here it is. You could probably reduce the sugar a fair whack, too.

You do change your expectations of what sweet things should taste like. I bought a poppy cake from the local Eastern European shop today and found it more than a bit shockingly sweet. (It was nice, but not the right sort of poppy cake, anyway. Grr.)

I usually go hardcore and switch to all wholemeal flour if I am trying to make a healthier biscuit / cake, myself

it mostly tastes fine - you do get less accustomed to having the very sweet and refined flour type of cake after a while

Great website NCQ - I've had a look and there are a few recipes which sound lovely. Thank you - and for link to other thread too.

Yes, it is a case of adjusting the old tastebuds to something a bit less sweet.

The really worthwhile thing on that site is the reviews. Oh, and the ingredient search. There are some truly terrifying recipes with pudding mix etc in them. Oh, and lots of cake recipes that involve cake mix!

But lots of lovely recipes too.

FrannyandZooey - I finally got round to baking the banana bread - it's gorgeous! DS only took a few mouthfuls this evening but hopefully he will like it - the carb content seems great so it will make life easier if he takes to it.