Best Dessert Ideas for Diabetics

Consolation
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:08:44 +0000

The best fruits for diabetics are typically berries and apples. One small apple has about 15 gms of carb. Citrus, grapes, not so good. Dried fruits are high in sugar, for obvious reasons. It’s not that the diabetic can’t eat anything, it’s a question of how much. For some things it isn’t enough to be worth it.

The problem in many baked goods is not the sugar, which can be modest when spread out over all the servings, but the flour. “No added sugar” does not equate to low carb. (Meringues are loaded with sugar, though.)

I have 2 great desserts that are diabetic friendly: one is a pumpkin cheesecake (no crust) made with a combination of artificial sweeteners, and the other is Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte made with good chocolate with at least 60% cacao, up to about 70%. It contains only the chocolate, butter, and eggs. It can be served with very lightly sweetened whipped cream. Neither of these contain any flour. And any time you can replace flour with finely ground almond or other nut flour, it will lower the carbs.

Regarding artificial sweeteners, supposedly you can use Splenda just like sugar, but in fact if you do the dessert will be revoltingly sweet, because granulated Splenda is sweeter than sugar. (And has added carbs: check it out.) The first time I made the cheesecake, I fell for that. It was horribly sweet and fake tasting. Now, I start with some granulated erythritol–less than half the sugar called for–and add some liquid sweetener like liquid Splenda (doesn’t have the added carbs) to taste. I put everything in the batter but the eggs for the tasting, then add the eggs. I have served this cheesecake in elaborate dessert buffets and everyone devours it. They apparently can’t tell that it is artificially sweetened. Erythritol is a “sugar alcohol” and is known to give people the runs if they consume too much of it at once. In addition, it has that almost minty aftertaste if too much is present. It is something you’d notice in sugarless hard candies. By combining the two, you get a far more natural-tasting sweetness without side effects. The pumpkin plus spices and lemon juice of the cheesecake also disguises any potential artificial flavor. It may be that this would work in a more conventional cheesecake, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Panna cotta made with less sugar in a sauce of pureed berries would be another lower carb dessert. If you check out panna cotta recipes, you’ll see that some have much less sugar. The sugar can be reduced in lots of custard-like desserts. I made a trifle for Christmas and reduced the sugar in the Creme Anglais by about half. It was delicious, and some of those eating it commented that they particularly liked that it wasn’t as sweet as such things often are.