Fructose free must-haves

In general, creating fructose free meals is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of checking food labels carefully, even on things like, say, canned tomatoes, pizza bases and pita bread, things which reason says should not have sugar but which the manufacturers, in their wisdom, have poured a couple of spoonfuls into. The good news is that for many things, you can find a brand that offers the product without the sugar. And voila, fructose free dinner is served.

There are some particular things which I've found handy to have around now that I'm avoiding fructose. Some of these are to replace sugar, and some are to replace the snacks/treats I used to eat. So, today I wanted to share my top cupboard must-haves for fructose-free eating. 

Rice malt syrup

This fructose free syrup is a little like honey in consistency, and doesn’t taste like rice at all- hurray! I use it on toast sometimes, or even on Weetbix instead of honey. 

Fructose-free milo

This is an amazing recipe recreation by The Colonel over at the Sweet Poison forum. It was a cinch to make once I sourced the ingredients, and I made a big old container full ready for a lovely hot drink whenever the mood strikes. Delicious and completely fructose free. Thanks Colonel!

Dextrose and glucose syrup

These are the sugar-substitute staples for fructose free baking. I’ve used these for chocolate, coconut cake and caramels so far, and there are more to come. But if you can’t be bothered waiting for me to experiment with treats you can check out the Sweet Poison forum for recipe ideas.  For those from the USA, you might want to check out nofructose.org where Bill is experimenting with fructose-free recipes using US ingredients.

Citric acid

This is a bit of an odd one, but lately I’ve found that I love a glass of water with just a sprinkle of citric acid in it- a bit like having a slice of lemon in water. It adds just a bit of sourness, as if I’m having a cordial drink but without the sweetness. With my tastebuds now unused to much sweetness, I really like the sourness. I don’t think it would be wise to overdose on this, since it is an acid and might do strange things to the tummy, but since I don’t drink soft drinks, juice or cordial anymore, it makes a nice change from plain water. You could easily add a sprinkle of dextrose as well to make it more like a lemon-y cordial.

Peanut butter

I’ve always loved peanut butter but I used to use it very rarely because of the fat. I would use jam- ie, fruit boiled with sugar- in preference to peanut butter. Now I’m making friends with fat and enjoying the delicious creaminess of smooth peanut butter (no added sugar variety, obviously).

Smiths Crinkle Cut Cheese and Onion chips

Flavourings in chips, savoury snack biscuits and so on are usually a sugar minefield, so at first I was limited to plain potato chips if I wanted a snack. I quickly got bored of these and scanned the flavoured chips in desperation. Surely I could find one without sugar?? Nope, no good. Until I looked more closely at the Cheese and Onion flavoured Smiths Crinkle Cut Chips. The ingredients list includes dextrose but no other sugars. And dextrose is just glucose, so it’s fine from a fructose perspective. And as luck would have it, cheese and onion is one of my favourite flavours. So, huzzah!

Of course over-indulging on any of the above will send me back to my now-abandoned fat pants, but the good thing is that without the fructose, I don’t over-indulge. Huzzah again! 

It’s always good to get new things to add to the repertoire, so I’d love to hear from you- what are your favourite fructose free finds or cupboard staples?

Creamy caramels

Creamy caramels

2/3 of the way through a series about going organic, and I’ve got a hankering for caramels. I’ll finish the organic thing later, I promise!

There are still days when I miss my lollies, and this week I’ve been really feeling it. I’ve been friends with them for so many years. I no longer crave them, but every now and then I have just a little sigh and a little wish for a sweet treat. And chocolate is all well and good, but some days you just need CANDY.

I’ve done a few experiments with glucose-based jelly lollies and hard boiled lollies, but I’m not happy with the outcome (I’ll post a recipe if I ever get them right). But the other day I wanted caramels, and nothing else, so I set out to see if they could be made without fructose. I found a recipe online here and decided to mold it to my fructose-free will. Mwa ha ha!

This recipe makes these soft, buttery caramels. 

Delicious for a sweet treat, and just what I was after J You will need a candy thermometer. Mine was about $6 from House (or was it Home?).

Here are the ingredients:

·         1 cup glucose syrup

·         1/4  cup water

·         1 cups dextrose powder

·         1 cup double cream

·         1/4 cup evaporated milk

·         1/4 cup softened butter, cut into small cubes

Line a pan with alfoil and spray the foil with oil/ cooking spray. This is VERY important unless you want to be picking foil out of your teeth later J

In a medium saucepan, heat the glucose syrup, water and dextrose. Just a tip for measuring out the glucose syrup which is so thick that it seems more like a solid than a liquid (at least when you are trying to get it from jar to measuring cup and from cup to pan!). Put the jar in a saucepan or bowl filled with hot water and leave it for a little bit. The syrup gets runnier as it heats slightly – which makes it much easier to pour out. Believe me, you will thank me for this step.

So, once the syrup, dextrose and water are in a saucepan and heating away, stir them until sugar dissolves (mine still looked a bit cloudy but wasn’t getting any clearer so I just let it go to the next stage: ). Allow the mixture to come to the boil, reduce the heat so that it is bubbling away by itself and insert the candy thermometer. Let the mixture boil until the candy thermometer shows 120 C (250 F).

While this is happening, you need to prepare the cream and evaporated milk by heating them in a separate saucepan- they need to be warm, but don’t let them boil. Have your butter ready as well.

When the sugar mixture hits 120C, it’s time to tip in the heated cream/evaporated milk mixture and the butter. The temperature will decrease- relax, this is normal.

Pull up a chair because you need to stir constantly from now on. Keep the candy thermometer in the mixture and keep stirring (while it bubbles away) until the thermometer hits 118 C (245 F). The recipe actually said 244, but let’s not split hairs here. It should be a lovely golden caramelly colour. If you want a firmer, chewier caramel, cook the candy until the temperature comes up to 120-125C. 

Pour into your prepared pan. Don’t scrape it from the bottom of the saucepan (no idea why not, the recipe says so).

Now the hard part. Leave the caramel alone. Overnight. Don’t worry, there is probably some left in the pan that you can scrape out and taste. If you are like me, you’ll probably get impatient and try and cut it early, but it really does need ages to set at room temperature and it apparently gets a smoother, silkier texture if left to cool and set at room temperature rather than in the fridge.

To cut it, tip it face down onto some baking paper, peel the foil away from the bottom (unless you are like me and didn’t grease the foil enough, in which case cut the foil away), and then cut into whatever size pieces you like using a greased knife.

If you cooked to 118C, your caramels will be very soft and you need to wrap them to keep their shape. They look very cute when wrapped (I just used baking paper in two stages- see below).

Wrap a strip as wide as the caramel around it once. Then place on a rectangle piece, wrap around, and twist the ends:

Voila!

But if you plan to eat them straight away, don’t care about shape, or you made them firmer, you don’t need to worry about this step (which I will admit is a tad fiddly)- just store them in an airtight container. The recipe says they will be good for two weeks, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I found with previous glucose candy experiments that it doesn’t last as well as sugar candy.

My only other comment is that if you are making this for yourself, you might want to halve the recipe. There is no way I would want to eat this much caramel in two weeks by myself, as delicious as it is.

Enjoy!