Home Made sugar Free Chocolate chip Cookies

I decided to have another go at some sugar free baking now Bake Off is in full swing.

This time I used xylitol as the sweetener instead of sugar.  It is easier to use than some of the other sweeteners as you can substitute it on a 1 for 1 replacement for sugar.

I could not find a sugar free recipe I liked.  I chose a recipe based on sugar and adapted it.  The quantities are strange as I had to scale down the amount of each ingredient for a smaller batch. (Unfortunately the only sugar free chocolate chips I could find come from Holland and Barrett)

I decided to take some advice from Mary Berry and use a margarine spread to make creaming  the Xylitol and fat easier.  However I think that butter adds a delicious flavour to biscuits so I chose to use a mixture of butter and spread.

Sugar free Chocolate Chip Recipe

112 gm mixture of  butter/marg
212 gm xylitol
1 egg
185 gm plain flour
150 gm choc chips
1 tspn  bicarbonate of soda
1 tspn hot water
vanilla essence

 Put the marg and butter into a bowl and mash them together, then mix in the xylitol to make a creamy mixture.
 Gradually beat in the egg and vanilla
 Gently mix in the flour
dissolve bicarb in hot water and add
stir in chips

roll into walnut sized balls put on tray and flatten slightly

pre-heated oven at 180 C
12 - 15 mins till lightly browned

 Taste Test

 When first out of the oven and allowed to cool the biscuits taste really good but the texture is a bit like a sponge cake.  If you have the will power to wait overnight the biscuits crisps up and have a really good texture

Couple of thoughts

Xylitol is a lot easier to work with compared to Stevia as it does not need additional bulking agent.  I was concerned that the coolness of Xtlitol might affect the biscuits but once cooked there was no noticeable affect.

Producing good bakery products from sweeteners is harder than it may seem, there is no simple substitute for sugar,