I've been doing this informally for years basically by starting out reducing sugar by about 1/3 or 1/2 and tweaking as needed. I learned to bake challah 20 years ago (which being a festival bread should, I think, have some sweetness) from a recipe that called for 1 1/4 cups sugar for 5 lbs. of flour. I cut it by half which still retains a fair amount of sweetness. Lately even that tastes sweet to me so I may be reducing it further. I've come upon a few cookie recipes lately that only call for 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of sugar for recipes using 2-3 cups of dry ingredients - it's amazing how much more subtle these recipes can be once you're not knocked out by a tsunami of sugar. Recipes that have complex spicing such as rose or orange blossom water or a kick of cayenne or cardamom are really enhanced by having less sugar.
January 29, 2017 at 11:14am