Comments on: A guide to baking substitutions

By: Christina S1

Christina S1 — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 13:42:03 +0000

Hi. I am interested in replacing table sugar (sucrose) with dextrose (aka corn sugar) to reduce my intake of fructose (sucrose is half fructose) for health reasons. I have tried this in muffins (using 100% of the weight of the flour; dextrose is 30% less sweet than table sugar) and it has worked well, but I am wondering about any advice you may have for using it in cakes, where I imagine it could have more of an impact. I like to bake by weight but unfortunately have not been able to find any cake recipes using dextrose that are measured in grams.

By: Janice

Janice — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 01:22:54 +0000

In reply to Christina. Hi, I would grind the pecans into a nut flour consistency, similar to ground almonds. Then I’d probably replace a portion of the flour with the ground pecans. If you grind the pecans into a butter, I would still keep the butter, and I’d probably test out adding the nut butter to your favourite chocolate chip cookie to see the impact on the texture. But I still suspect that, if anything, they will replace a portion of the flour, and not necessarily the butter like we might expect. It seems counter-intuitive because, like you said, nuts are quite fatty, but there’s more to them then just the fat, and I think they actually bring a “structural” element to cookies, not just fat. Sorry I don’t have a specific example right now. I hope this answer may guide you somewhat!

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 12:56:34 +0000

Hello,
I want to grind down raw pecans and add this to a basic cookie dough recipe, like chocolate chip dough...would that replace some of the flour or the butter? I know pecans are fatty, and they would not be in a flour-like consistency, more of almost a puree, so I don't know which base ingredient to alter.
Also, this list is very helpful in general, thanks!