Category: Ingredient - No Naughties

Agar flakes

6/2/2013

Agar flakes can be used as a vegan gelling agent. They are made from seaweed, but fortunately they don’t taste like it.

Unlike gelatine, agar flakes need to be boiled in the liquid you want to set. This limits their use a little. However, agar sets faster than gelatine – which is always a positive when you’re waiting to tuck into your treat! Read more...

No-added-sugar fruit spreads

28/11/2012

If you want to cut down your sugar consumption, one option is to use no-added-sugar fruit spreads instead of sugar.

St. Dalfour and Meridian are popular no-added-sugar fruit spread brands. The former is generally a little sweeter than the latter, but both taste wonderful and are easily available in the UK. Most supermarkets sell St. Dalfour fruit spreads on the jam aisle: usually, the larger the supermarket, the wider the variety of flavours. Both brands can be bought in health food shops and online. Read more...

Sugar-free chocolate

14/11/2012

Someone once said: “Put ‘eat chocolate’ at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.”

If you can’t eat sugar, eating chocolate is not straightforward. Fortunately, the manufacturers are increasingly realising that chocolate is not just for those who can eat sugar. And there are now a number of options to satisfy your chocolate cravings without sugar. Read more...

Dairy-free chocolate

31/10/2012

If you are a lover of chocolate, but can’t have dairy, lactose or casein, what are your options? Fortunately, there are delicious alternatives available. Read more...

Honey in cooking and baking

17/10/2012

If you can use honey, it adds a number of advantages to your baking:

It enhances browning and crispiness. If you use gluten-free flour blends in your baking, you may have noticed that they don’t brown very well. Honey can help to add colour to your treats.

Honey retains more moisture in cakes and other treats which makes them more succulent. Read more...

Buying xylitol

3/10/2012

As xylitol has become more popular, it's become more widely available. In the UK there are now several brands to choose from, such as XyloBrit, Total Sweet and Xylitol UK. They all come in a granular form, looking very much like ordinary sugar. The bag size is usually 225-250 g, but there are some 1 kg bags and 4 g saches available, too. Read more...

Honey

19/9/2012

Honey is made by bees from the nectar of flowers. However, it’s not suitable for everyone:

Honey’s sweetness comes mainly from glucose and fructose, so it is in this respect similar to ordinary sugar. Therefore, it’s not suitable for those on an anti-candida diet. Read more...

Artificial sweeteners

5/9/2012

Artificial sweeteners are synthetic sugar substitutes. They are high-intensity sweeteners, that is, sweeteners that are many times sweeter than ordinary sugar. They do not contribute to tooth decay and they have a negligible number of calories. Examples include aspartame (used, for example, in the brands of NutraSweet and Canderel), saccharin (used, for example, in the brand Sweet’N Low) and sucralose (used, for example, in the brands of Splenda and Canderel Yellow). Read more...

Sugar substitutes

22/8/2012

Sweetness is an elemental part of sweet treats. But how do you add sweetness if you can’t eat sugar?

Fortunately, there are several substitutes to choose from. Read more...

Wheat flour substitutes

8/8/2012

Baking without wheat and gluten poses some challenges, but fortunately there are a number of gluten-free flours and other substitutes that can be used instead of wheat flour. Read more...