Customer Reviews

Sweet and Natural Baking: Sugar-free, Flavorful Recipes from Mani's Bakery

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

 

 

I love to bake. I am not vegan/vegetarian or looking to lower my cholesterol. However, you can be any of those things and still use this book. I have a hyperactive 4 year old on the Feingold Diet. Even tho they don't suggest you eliminate sugar, I feel my son is less high strung when his sugar intake is low. However, he loves yummy baked things. This is where Mani's book comes in. The chocolate chip pecan cookies are really great! I have a jar full..actually not full anymore...downstairs right now. Mani lists substitutions for dairy free, egg free etc... so anyone could use this book. Just keep or add in what you like, and keep out what you don't. Personally, I love dairy and eggs but wanted to do without the sugar. I like that you have options with this book. So many other sugar-free baking books are vegan. The great thing about Mani's book is that anyone can use it and everything in it is fabulous!

This is my favorite cookbook, not because every recipe in it is to my liking, but because some of the recipes are superb. The Cranberry-Walnut Scones and Chunky Carrot Cake recipes (the latter of which is truly vegan) alone are worth the price of the book. I get raves for them all the time. And not everyone likes Southern-style Cornmeal Waffles, but I adore them.

Most of the recipes call for a fruit-juice concentrate sweetener. When I lived in the Northwest, I used the excellent one from Mystic Lake Dairy that's available in stores there. Fortunately, the author provides very easy instructions for making your own (involving only apple juice and either a microwave or a saucepan and stove).

This is such a great book, the whole thing is pleasing and wonderful to look at. And the majority of the recipes I've tried you'll die over! Even ones that don't require any sweetner in them at all. Such as the Banana-Nut Pancakes. Moist, tender and wonderful!

My brother and I are very sensitive to even organic sugar and fruit juice is the only thing we've found that doesn't affect us so this book is a treasure!

However, note that Fruit-Sweet is this chef's favorite sweetner. BUT he does tell you how to make your own concentrated sweetner with frozen juice concentrate. VERY NICE! Be warned, I thought I'd be daring and try pineapple juice and made the peanut butter cookies. Don't do it! White Grape Juice and White Grape & Peach Juice are the ones I've found that you can use for any recipe.

Everything in here takes a little time. But if you want something sweet and can't get anything at the nearby grocery or organic store then invest a little and enjoy this book, it's well worth every penny.

I think this is a fantastic book for people who are sensitive to sugar and those who wish to increase their use of whole grains in baking. I found these recipes easy to use, including making my own Fruit Juice Reduction. An earlier reviewier noted that she was confused about the fruit juice reduction containing corn syrup. If I am reading Mani Niall's book correctly, the fruit juice concentrate should NOT contain corn syrup. All this means is spending a minute or two reading labels in the freezer section of your local market and making sure the fruit juice concentrate you purchase contains only 100% unsweetened fruit juice.

this is a wonderful little dessert cookbook for those who want to avoid using any refined or unrefined sugars. i usually use turbinado sugar and occasionally Sucanat but since i have bought this cookbook i have pretty much stopped using even those and gone with the author's recommendation of Fruit Sweet. The author's directions are very easy to follow. There are a decent number of whole grain recipes, too. I would caution the baker who is looking for a whole-grain only or whole grain-heavy cookbook tho. This book, while having a decent number of whole grain recipes does have many that call for white, all be it unbleached, flour. I suppose you could always substitute your whole grain for her recipes that do call for white flour but i have not tried doing so yet.

I like the idea of using natural sweeteners in baking and the author suggests other sweeteners aside from juice concentrate reductions. Although that is the predominant sweetener that is used for many of the recipes. I'm very pleased with the variety of recipes, cookies, brownies, cakes and the creative use of flour free, egg free ingredients. I just wish he included more recipes here maple sugar, honey or molassas were the primary sweeteners.

great book for sugar free treats. the recipes call for fruit sweeteners, and are really good.

Reading "Rachel's" review makes it sound a little like a vegan might enjoy this book? Well, if you are vegan, like me, you WON'T! It is stuffed with recipes including eggs, butter, milk, cream, buttermilk...! VERY few recipes in this book are truly vegan! So it eliminates white sugar...big whoop...true vegans don't use white sugar to begin with (bone char)! I am not saying this isn't a good book - but it ain't for vegans! (Unless you are a vegan with a whole lotta money and don't mind paying [money] for about 15 recipes...!)

I love to bake. And I love to bake healthy. The way I see it, the whole point of having a dessert is to enjoy it. I can not say that I enjoyed items that I baked using recipes from this book. I did not feel very well after ingesting so much fruictose.
And I am confused... The book says that fruit juice consentrates are less refined sweeteners than sugar. But then, a lot of fruit juice consentrates are loaded with high fruictose corn syrup. So, is the author suggesting that corn syrup is healthier than sugar? Is it?