Customer Reviews

Sensational Stevia Desserts

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've been using only Stevia as a sweetener for 4 years, mainly added to beverages or cereal, but I was missing the occasional sweet treat. I have bought 5 Stevia books: David Richard's Stevia Rebaudiana, Jeffrey Goettemoeller's Stevia Sweet Recipes, James & Tanya Kirkland's Sugar-Free Cooking with Stevia, Rita DePuydt's Stevia, and Lisa Jobs Sensational Stevia Desserts. The Stevia information in all of the books is very helpful; however, Goettemoeller's book is the best for "from-scratch" bakers like me (I mill my own flour), but Lisa Jobs' recipes are great for "casual" bakers. The ingredients are easily found in my grocery store, the recipes are easy to follow, but the best recommendation is that every recipe I've tried in this book has been delicious, including the non-fruit ones. Stevia has no problem sweetening recipes with fruit in them--even my sugar-loving husband can't tell the difference--but Stevia can be bitter if too much is used. Lisa Jobs, however, has come up with the right amount of Stevia to make a recipe yummy. I've successfully made and enjoyed her cobblers, pumpkin bars and pumpkin custard (taste and texture like pumpkin pie!), cookies, Rice Custard Pudding, and just today, her Chocolate-Peanut Butter Fudge II. After tasting that, I knew I had to recommend this wonderful Senstational Stevia Desserts cookbook to others on "no sugar added" diets. The nutritional information for each recipe is an added plus. I'm doing my Christmas baking now for teacher, neighbor, and friend gifts, and those (diabetics, dieters, and/or limiting sweets) who receive the goodies from this cookbook will not feel deprived!

Not only do you need a good Stevia recipe book, but you also need the right Stevia brand. I'd read that KAL was the best tasting brand, but KAL wasn't sold locally, so I had only used NOW powder or Sweet Leaf packets, which can make home-made desserts bitter, except in beverages, or if not combined with fruit or if not used in precise measurements. When my local NOW source couldn't deliver for 2 months, I checked on-line for a quicker source and discovered KAL brand available and decided to try it. I am so glad I did. The taste is never bitter. As an experienced Stevia user, I highly recommend KAL as the best tasting stevia available. If you're not liking the taste of Stevia, before giving up entirely on it, try KAL Stevia.

And if you find stevia bitter, it's probably because you're still using sugar or artificial sweeteners also. My daughter-in-law discovered her normally delicious stevia-sweetened morning coffee would taste bitter if she'd had a non-stevia sweetened dessert the night before.

This is a good book. It gives you the nutritional breakdowns which is nice, and compares them to the same products made with sugar. She uses healthy ingredients, but not much in the way of whole grains. It's definitely low-carb friendly, as you can easily see how many carbs each recipe will set you back. None of the recipies include other sugar sources which is nice to see in a stevia cookbook.

The Rich Ricotta Cheese Pie was a huge hit with my family. Also tried the cannoli with excellent results. The best part is NOOO guilt since all the deserts are sugarless. Can't wait to try the rest.

This book was not as fantastic as I was hoping it would be. For one thing, there are quite a few recipes that do contain sugar in the form of chocolate or chocolate chips. As an individual who cannot consume sugar for health reasons, I was rather disappointed to see that. Also, I thought that the chocolate recipes that used only stevia and unsweetened cocoa tasted terrible. It was almost like the tastes got separated and didn't hit my tongue at the same time. First I would get a really bitter cocoa taste and then a weird stevia aftertaste. The chocolate layer cake was pretty much inedible and ended up getting thrown out. I also made the chocolate peanut butter fudge and had the same experience. I thought that maybe it was just the chocolate recipes, so I made the ricotta pie as well. It was ok, but still had a funny aftertaste and was not terrific. I was using the KAL brand stevia that another reviewer seemed to have good luck with but it just didn't work out for me.

This cookbook is now my most favorite! We used a couple of the recipes for our Christmas celebration and everyone loved the foods. Stevia does have a little different type of sweet flavor than sugar, but it is a yummy flavor. I personally liked the cookies and our daughter's friends at school loved the Wonderful White Chocolate Cherry Cookie recipe! Wow! The chocolate truffle recipe was yummy (minus the cocoa powder...too bitter for us). Everything else was very good. It did take quite a while for the book to get to us, but it was within the time allowance set. The book was well worth the wait! The tips in the book are very well needed and appreciated when you are first learning about the measurements of stevia vs. sugar. I recommend this book to anyone who cooks with stevia or who may be wanting to learn how. This concept of cooking is a huge change for us. I was raised with southern cooking methods. What a nice alternative for my family. Shhhhhhh! Don't tell my grandma!

Well worth the money. User friendly. Helped me figure out the measurements for the stevia I use "Sweetleaf"
Great desserts for a diabetic.

I bought this book thinking it was a low-carb stevia cookbook (as the title indicates); however, it uses wheat flour. The only thing that makes it low-carb is that the recipes use stevia instead of sugar. To me, that is not low-carb. It is probably a good cookbook if you only desire to use stevia to replace sugar in your recipes, as there is an art to using stevia. You can't just replace the sugar with stevia; you have to add some bulk, such as apple sauce or some extra liquid, etc. The book has lots of recipes that sound very tasty, but I needed a cookbook that was also wheat-free so this wasn't the book for me.

This is the second stevia baking book I have tried. Did not have good luck with this one or the other one. Stevia seems to work when baking with fruit as a supplement to the sweetness, but I have not been successful with chocolate cake or brownies. My tastebuds get two sensations, first of bitter unsweetened cocoa, then an aftertaste of sweetness, but these two do not seem to come at the same time. So far stevia tastes good only in my coffee!

The layout of this book is very nice -- easy to read, with the breakdown comparison of the stevia recipes vs. sugar. That is the best part of the book; and perhaps the book tastes better than the recipes. I tried making the chocolate chip cookies and the brownies (twice) and both turned out very egg-y. The texture was more souffle-like and pretty gross; it is not the "cake like" consistency the author claims it to be. I even made the brownies a second time-- using less eggs; same result. Needless to say, I was disappointed and will continue my search for good stevia dessert recipes.

Good book, lots of great desserts, I have all of the books on Stevia, one of the best sweetners finally on the market nearly everywhere. It saved my life, aspertaine was killing me, and I found stevia about fifteen years ago, been using it ever since, TRY IT and the books.