I love to bake. If I could live on baked goods, cookies, cakes, quickbreads, and empty carbs, I’d do it. (I hate to cook though.) Maybe it’s the control freak in me that knows that I have to follow a recipe exactly in order for it to turn out correctly. And it works out great because the cook is supposed to share her spoils… not eat it herself.
Finding an alternative to my other favorite hobby have led me to Diabetic Cooking websites and diabetic keywords on Pinterest. (I don’t really want to give this up. Neither does my husband.)
So tonight I tried baking a really odd combination of ingredients and ended up with something pretty fantastic.
These are Blueberry-Lemon-Ginger muffins. I know, right? I wouldn’t have tried mixing those together either. But, oddly enough, it works. It’s just sweet enough to enjoy in the morning with a cup of coffee. But, apparently, only around 20 grams of carbs.
A couple notes:
- I used Splenda rather than the sugar Splenda blend. Remember that the blend only require half as much or so when subbing it out for sugar. Since 100% Splenda is the equivalent 100% sugar, I used one cup of Splenda. Worked fine.
- This recipe makes a real gooey dough. Expect to slap it down into the muffin cups by the spoonful. Makes exactly 12.
- I have never zested anything in my life. Until now. I assume there is a better way to do it than I did. But it didn’t seem to hurt anything.
- Around here, blueberries are SUPER EXPENSIVE right now. This might be a good summer treat instead.
Now, I haven’t baked with Splenda in a really long time. In fact, I kind of swore off it because I was getting unpredictable results with my cookies, and people often gave me weird looks when I said they were eating artificial sugar. (A soapbox post on that later, when I’m feeling feisty.) Plus it’s expensive. And I bake… a lot. However, I was curious, had some Splenda left over, and wanted to try it. I’m sure regular sugar can be subbed in if you don’t feel like putting chemicals in your body. <sigh>
Anyway, if you try it, let me know what you think.
Dietician appointment early morning tomorrow. Yay!
See Jen Dance 
Zesting is such an interesting experience! I definitely am bad at it, but I have found best success with an actual zester. In a pinch, I’m sure a cheese grater would work as well. Small holes, obviously, I’m also intrigued by the buttery spread in cooking, rather than a substitute like margarine, shortening or oil of some sort. I’ve found that most spreads are just combinations of oil and water in some kind of stable emulsion, so I’d wonder if that gives you more options for ingredient experimentation. Also, I like to use agave nectar in my sweetening, but I have no idea what that means for insulin levels. I would use caution when cooking with it, because it’s mostly fructose if memory serves and that tends to react to heat differently than sucrose that table sugar is made of. I have no idea of the chemistry behind it, though.
I was kinda of shocked at the spread as well. But – it worked. (And it’s labeled as vegan, so you might be able to have it as well.)
I actually have a zester. I’ve just never used it before. I honestly felt like I was peeling a carrot, and had no idea if what I was doing was correct. But – all of my co-workers enjoyed it, so I assume there were no offensive zests in the recipe.
By the way – I’d just like to point out that you have bangs in your photo. Just saying dude…