http://splenda.tastebook….Cheesecake-Bars

I am experimenting with some sugar substitutes and using less all purpose flour in my baking. Splenda has some recipes to use a a basis for making your own alterations. Instead of using Splenda, I used a blue agave sweetener, available at Costco in San Francisco.

There are a few tricks with blue agave sweetener:

1. Use less (because it is 25% sweeter than sugar)
2. It’s additional liquid (reduce other liquids by 30%)
3. Bake longer and at lower temperature (reduce temperature by about 25 degrees F)

Here is the recipe from Splenda and how I changed it in italics:

Ingredients

¼ cup SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated (I used only 1/8 cup blue agave since I like things less sweet)
1¼ cups graham cracker or vanilla wafer crumbs
⅓ cup light butter, melted
¼ cup toasted sliced almonds, finely ground (I used about 1/3 cup almond meal, available at Trader Joe’s)

12 ounces reduced fat cream cheese (I used one 8-ounce package)
½ cup SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated (I used 1/4 cup blue agave)
2 large eggs
¼ cup reduced fat sour cream (I used FAGE Greek yogurt since I didn’t have sour cream)
2½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (excluded)
¼ cup toasted, sliced almonds (I used slivered almonds)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Mix crust ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Mix well. Press into prepared 8×8 pan. Bake 10-12 minutes or until firm. (It took about 20 minutes to brown.)Mix cream cheese and SPLENDA® Granulated Sweetener (substitute blue agave here) together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl, and mixing well after each addition. Add sour cream (substitute Greek yogurt here), vanilla and almond extracts; mix well. Pour over prepared crust.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 47 minutes, or until firm.

5. Top with toasted almonds.

Since graham crackers are actually very high in sugar, if I was to make the crust again, I would just use almond meal for the entire recipe. I think it does need the extra cream cheese so would use the entire 12 ounces (but I only had one 8 ounce package on hand…). The taste was pretty good though, I don’t think you can tell that I didn’t use cane sugar and the toasted almonds on top were quite a nice addition even though I didn’t use almond extract in the cream cheese portion.

http://lovetoeatlearntoco…th-soymilk.html

I didn’t have any milk at home but needed to bake something for our work potluck so I found this recipe substituting soy milk for cow’s milk. You can find the original posting here but here it is as well (with a few modifications, like I doubled the recipe for a thicker flan):

Soymilk Flan

1 cup granulated sugar (used 1/2 only)
1/4 cup water (used 1/2 only)
2 cups soy milk (used vanilla soy milk so left out the vanilla extract)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (did not use)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup sugar (used 1/2 only since soy milk a bit sweetened)

1. You can use a loaf pan and make one large flan (I made one large pan) or smaller ramekins. Six 6-ounce ramekins or 4 larger ones work well for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Put water on to boil.

2. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat until sugar melts and mixture begins to darken. Stir occasionally. When the sugar mixture turns a dark golden brown – this will take about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and pour enough to coat the bottom into each ramekin, if using, or pour all into the bottom of the loaf pan.

3. Heat the soy milk and the vanilla in a small saucepan until it is just about to boil. Turn off burner and put aside.

4. Beat eggs, egg yolks, salt and sugar in a bowl with a whisk (or using an electric mixer) until they are a light yellow color.

5. Stirring constantly, pour the milk mixture in a thin stream into the egg mixture until they are completely combined. Pour into loaf pan or divide equally among the ramekins.

6. Put the loaf pan or the ramekins into a deep roasting dish and put it on the middle shelf in the oven. Pour boiling water into the roasting dish until the water comes about halfway up the sides of the custard dishes.

7. Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the the custard is almost set, but the middles are still wiggly. Remove from oven and let cool. Refrigerate until you are ready to eat them.

8. To serve flan, place ramekin (or loaf pan) into hot water for 20 seconds, run a thin sharp knife around the edge of the dish and invert it onto a dessert plate.

One other modification on cooking time, I baked it at 300 F for 60 minutes and the center was still quite jiggly so turned up the heat to 325 F for another 30 minutes, still jiggly, so finally turned it up to 350 F for another 30 minutes before it finally solidified to my satisfaction. I cooled it overnight in the refrigerator and served it in the dish (did not invert it onto a dessert plate).

When you cut into it though, the caramel gets all over the place (see the thick layer on the bottom).

I think if I make it again and use the vanilla soy milk, I would completely cut out the granulated sugar. It’s plenty sweet and the caramel does the job. My co-workers said it tasted good (they couldn’t tell it was soy milk) and the texture was between JELL-O and flan, thicker than flan but not as thick as JELL-O.