Making biscuits/cakes with less sugar, does it work?

[Cappuccino76]

I’m not the best baker I’ll admit. But my kids are at the age now where baking activities are fun. So this Christmas I want to make the usual sugar biscuits for decorating, gingerbread people etc…

My question is if I leave out about half the sugar will it all still come together?

what do you fellow bakers do regarding sugar quantities in recipes?

thank you & happy baking!

I often cut down on sugar by 1/3 or so. I also often replace some flour with shredded coconut or almond flour. I just eyeball it. I don't mess with any yeast recipes though :)

My mum puts, at most, 1/2 the sugar into all her baking/jam making, she says you can't tell.

Everything she bakes/makes is horrible.

I don't think it will work for biscuit dough. The consistency is important.

I make a lovely banana bread but the amount of sugar in the recipe seems too much to I leave out about a quarter and it's fine.

I do this! And it's fine.

I'll usually use about 2/3 of what the recipe recommends sugar wise.

So say it's a cake with 250g of flour, 250g butter, and 250g sugar etc.

I'll put around 150g of sugar in and keep everything else and the recipe suggests.

We actually find shop bought baked goods tooth achingly sweet since doing this.

I've made cookies in the past and cut down the sugar by about half. The consistency wasn't affected. They tasted less sweet, but that was the point 🤣

I also think it's fine for biscuit dough too (I would just taste a bit of the dough to get a sense of it).

I reduce the sugar by about 1/3 to a 1/2 depending on what I’m baking for my family. Especially if they are going to be iced. If I am baking for other people, a bake sale etc then I put in the full amount. I have found vanilla extract, cinnamon or a sprinkle of crunchy brown sugar on the top of a cake are all good ways to trick your brain in to thinking something is sweeter then it is.

Sugar is a structural ingredient as well as a sweetener. I made sugar cookies this weekend and creaming together the butter and sugar wouldn't have the same effect if there had been half the amount of sugar. Personally I'd rather have something delicious less often than a bad biscuit more frequent bad biscuits. People will say that they've tried it and it worked, but I've also had people swearing you'd never guess their brownies are sugar free and have beetroot in them but it's very obvious.

Let them have the sugar for one.no harm will come from this and your teaching young kids badly if your already getting them conscious and cutting out food groups.kids should bake proper full fat,full sugar fun.it will teach them balance way better than restriction.
Chemistry wise sugar is also needed.for melting point,binding and consistency.

I always use Xylitol nowadays. But previously always cut the sugar down by two thirds and added lucuma. Always readily devoured by the family and friends!

You can reduce sugar in cakes and such, but not sugar/gingerbread biscuits imho. It messes up the final biscuit.

How do you find xylitol? Do you use the same amount as you would sugar? I used it a couple of times but found the cookies had a weird taste to them.

Probably worth mentioning in case anyone is unaware that xylitol is extremely toxic to dogs and cats, so if you’re baking with it you might want to take extra care.

I find it depends on the recipe - my general rule is anything from an American website can usually have the sugar reduced by at least 1/4, if not 1/3!

Hi! I’m sorry to hear that. We’ve literally not noticed any difference whatsoever.
stevia has an aftertaste we don’t like much, but xylitol afaik just tastes like sugar.

Yes! American recipes often have way too much sugar anyway. It depends on the recipe, OP. Generally, if you cut down too much then it will affect the taste/ consistency... but a lot of American recipes have more than enough to spare.

My mum managed to reduce sugar in her baked goods and her lemon meringue pie was fantastic. Far less sugary than a Sarah Lee!!!

I reduce sugar in some things. Lemon meringue and also crumble needs far less-just do it to taste. I disagree that it's teaching cutting out "food groups", since sugar isn't one.

Erythritol (spelling?) is another alternative to xylitol which is not toxic to pets. Both can be used as a 1:1 substitute for sugar but I found both the taste and texture different to sugar and didn’t enjoy anything I baked with either while I had gestational diabetes. Large amounts might have a laxitive effect too although I never noticed this. American recipes are definitely too sweet but I think you just have to experiment with each recipe or look for lower sugar recipes that other people have already optimised.

We've used Erythritol and it leaves a 'cold' taste in your mouth if you just use that. However, we found you could replace 1/4 - 1/3 of sugar with it and not detect it at all in almost everything.

It doesn't work in things like buttercream - it ruins the tastes and often the consistency. But everything that has sugar baked into it, has been fine.

This made me chuckle!!

Use recipes from the UK or Europe and avoid any American recipes, they are often over sweetened and not pleasant to our tastes.

You can sometimes get away with leaving a 1/3 out, but baking is a science, not like cooking where it's personal taste to add more garlic, less salt etc, it won't affect the texture/rise/crumb/structure, messing with sugar levels will.

I do cut it a bit in recipes I find too sweet but I wouldn't do this much - I prefer to minimise unnecesssary sugar (e.g. not eating cereal/prepped food) and then enjoy proper baking.

The muffin recipe I make (a standard one) has 100g in 10 muffins - so 10g in each - which is not much in a healthy day (the daily allowance for young children is 19g, for older children 24g, for teens/adults 30g).

I wouldn't tbh - baking is a careful balance of ingredients, changing one element will affect the outcome.

You can take out a third and it makes no real difference as long as you keep the fat content.