Sweetness

I'm going to start experimenting with no carb and lower carb low GI sweeteners in low carb baked goods.

I recently bought a small tub of Thai Taste-brand natural palm sugar (paste form) at Whole Foods, in the Asian foods aisle. The tub says that it only has 3 grams of carbohydrates per 1 tablespoon (yes tablespoon) of the paste. (The granulated form seems to have more carbs in it, from what I’ve read online).

It is the best tasting sugar product I have ever eaten… hands down. The paste is a little messy, but I think it is worth it.

AM I CRAZY TO TINKER WITH DELICIOUS SWEET THINGS?  Maybe not?  I hope!  I'm trying to incorporate small amounts of it into baked goods that I make with no carb sweeteners, to make the sweetness a little more palatable without affecting the low-carb character of the dessert.  This is a low GI sugar product.  Using 1 tbsp in a recipe that makes more than a dozen servings should not be a huge deal.  (Famous last words?)  Plus, even MD Eades uses a bit of brown sugar in her low carb cookie recipes. 

Note: I read that some of the coconut palm sugar that you get in Asian markets is cut with refined cane sugar. Also, it seems that sugar from the palmyra date palm has more carbs than sugar from the coconut palm. So, check the side of the container!

Used together with Thai Taste’s green curry paste, this makes a phenomenal green thai curry. Yum Yum.  Eating it did not knock me out of ketosis.  So far so good.