For those of you who are regular readers of my blog you will notice that I always replace sugar with fructose in my recipes. I am sucrose intolerant which means my body cannot digest sucrose. I have been asked on a few occasions recently about this and I hope this post helps. I am not going to get into the benefits or lack thereof of any product. However, knowledge is power and so hopefully, the following will add to what you already know.
Sucrose, which we see most commonly in the form of cane sugar is a molecule that is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose and has the molecular formula C12H22O11. Both cane and sugar beets are used to make sucrose. We come across various forms of sugar in our daily life and this is a ‘hidden’ ingredient in a lot of prepackaged products.
Glucose and fructose are both simple sugars (monosaccharides). Glucose is commonly known as dextrose. The molecular formula for both is C6H12O6. Fructose is sourced from plant sources and is found in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries and most root vegetables.
Diabetics have a real problem with sucrose, glucose and fructose in their diets and it is important to keep this in mind when reading my recipes. They are designed for people like me, people that cannot process sucrose. However, this particular recipe is diabetic friendly. It uses Canderel Yellow, which is a sucralose based product. The most important thing to keep in mind here is that sucralose is a volume for volume replacement for sugar / fructose and so if you would like to substitute this for any sugar / fructose in my recipes, you need to do it per volume (i.e. cups) and not per weight (i.e. grams).
I made these cranberry and raisin muffins with two aims in mind – firstly would they have the same texture and taste as my regular muffins and would they store well? They are slightly sweeter than my blueberry muffins, but this could be because of the dried fruit. They kept very well and I was still eating them three days later for breakfast.
Cranberry and Raisin Muffins
Ingredients
- 215 g flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ½ cup Canderal Yellow or your locally available Sucralose product
- 50 g dried cranberries
- 25 g raisins
- 60 g butter
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- ½ cup milk
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200° Celsius
- Mix together the dry ingredients
- Melt the butter
- Add the milk to the egg and then add the melted butter
- Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the liquid
- Gently fold in until just mixed – you want a lumpy texture
- Spoon the mixture into a prepared muffin tin
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Allow to cool on a wire rack
Tandy
disclaimer: I have not been paid to advertise Canderel Yellow, however, the product was given to me at no charge at a bloggers event hosted by Canderel.
I’m going to try these today. Looks perfect for Peder. Thank you for this recipe! By the way, the link to the printable version isn’t loading (file not found).
thanks Misk for telling me – I will go in now and see what went wrong!
It is an error I have made on the last 20 or so blog posts! Thank you for telling me 🙂
Have a good trip, and enjoy Scotland. 🙂
thanks Misky 🙂
My children love cranberries! They will enjoy this! (Do you think this is the reason why you stay so slim? – the replacement of sugar with fructose?)
It could be why I am so slim, but genetics has a lot to do with it as well 🙂
Cranberries are my weakness so how I could possibly refuse your wonderful muffins 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I love cranberries and use them rather than raisins if I can 🙂
I am always looking for new muffin and cupcake recipes Tandy – these sound fabulous.
🙂 Mandy
I’m surd you will love these!
Lovely cranberries are a favourite of mine too, Tandy. Thanks for the interesting info on fructose. I will look out for that Canderel product. xxx
let me know if you cannot find it 🙂
These look so wonderful! 🙂 I really love dried cranberries!
me too! thank you Jen 🙂
These look great. We use brown sugar or reduce the white sugar in many recipes.
here, brown sugar is just white sugar with mollasses added back!
They look delicious Tandy! Thanks for the info 🙂
my pleasure 🙂
It’s so awesome that you’ve found a way to adjust your recipes to create delicious desserts and treats that anyone would love to enjoy! Very informative post today, I didn’t know much about this!
there is so much more I am learning! And everyone needs to be able to eat dessert xox
Your muffins look realy delectable & it is great to change recipes to you needs. I am lactose-intolerant & use lactose free milk, lactose free cream & lactose free butter or a vegan baking margarine. It is all about adapting foods! Good for you! 🙂
I need to start working more with lactose free products 🙂
Lots of interesting info there, I was wondering about the sucrose. The muffins look amazing and it´s good that they keep too!
it was good that they kept and I have more to add to this theme soon 🙂
I had no idea there was a difference between sucrose and fructose, I mean I knew there was some type of difference since they have different names etc but I had no idea some people couldn’t process one or the other or all of them. Thanks for a quick lesson!
my pleasure! It was a huge learning lesson for me 🙂