Customers say
Customers appreciate how the book breaks down traditional sugar-filled recipes and helps trim down dessert sweetness, while also providing detailed instructions and comprehensive nutrition information for each recipe. They like the pictures and recipes, with one customer noting that each recipe includes a color photo. The taste receives mixed reviews, with some finding the results very bland.
Make It Yours – See Your Price On Amazon!
A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
In this timely, unique cookbook, America’s Test Kitchen tackles the monumental challenge of creating foolproof, great-tasting baked goods that contain less sugar and rely only on natural alternatives to white sugar.
White sugar is one of the most widely demonized health threats out there, even more than fat, and consumers are increasingly interested in decreasing the amount of sugar they use and also in using less-processed natural sweeteners. But decreasing or changing the sugar in a recipe can have disastrous results: Baked goods turn out dry, dense, and downright inedible. We address these issues head-on with 120 foolproof, great-tasting recipes for cookies, cakes, pies and more that reduce the overall sugar content by at least 30% and rely solely on more natural alternatives to white sugar.
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: M Lee
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The only baking cookbook I use
Review: I love baking, but do not like all the extra sugar that means consuming, so I tend to reduce the sugar by 1/4 to 1/3 in any recipe that I make. Sometimes the results are good, and sometimes… well, not so good. I am also a big fan of America’s Test Kitchen, so naturally when I saw this book I had to buy it. So far I have tried recipes from most of the sections in the book, and for the most part it delivers.The goal of the book is to reduce sugar in their regular recipes by as much as possible, while still having a delicious, satisfying dessert. The first chapter of the book deals with the science behind why this is hard, all of the testing they went through, the tricks they discovered. I would not skip this section, it is important to understand at least a little bit of the science behind baking. One of the most crucial takeaways for me was that honey is not like any other natural sweetener used in the book. Honey is its own separate deal, and so is *not* a good substitute for sugar or maple syrup or other sweeteners.The recipes are laid out much like other ATK recipes, with an explanation at the beginning before getting to the recipe. They hide a lot of tips in these introduction sections, so definitely read them before beginning. Each recipe also includes a before and after sugar count, showing you just how much they were able to cut down the sugar. For many of the recipes, they also include a blurb about substituting the sweetener used in the recipe (usually sucanat) with other sweeteners (coconut sugar or granulated sugar). This is very useful, because I do not have a cheap supply of sucanat or coconut sugar, and unless it’s really critical to use sucanat for the success of the recipe, I’d rather not.Okay. So what really matters is how the recipes taste, right? Well here is a list of the recipes I have tried, and my family’s opinion of them:* Maple layer cake with maple cream cheese frosting – the cake was moist, plenty sweet, and tasty, though it smelled like pancakes (I guess that makes sense). It used a *lot* of maple syrup, so it wasn’t a cheap cake to make. We did not like the frosting. It was gluey and disappointing. I ended up frosting the cake with my usual low-sugar buttercream.* Anise-poppyseed muffins – They were pretty good fresh, but dried out a lot more than regular muffins afterwards. They were only slightly sweet, but my children still enjoyed them and asked me to make them again.* Coconut lime cream pie – This was much more coconut flavored than lime, which was okay, but I was wanting something closer to a key lime pie. The flavor was very mild, almost bland. Also, and this is probably not the recipe’s fault, mine didn’t set up well. I have never been great at cream pies….* Strawberry chamomile streusel bars – These were delicious. You need to make these.* Maple caramel apples with cinnamon cream – Amazing. Absolutely restaurant quality dessert, I never would have guessed these were low sugar.* Chocolate pudding cake – Deep chocolate flavor, perfectly sweet, amazing texture. Rich and delicious.Bottom line: this is a cookbook well worth owning
Reviewer: Perelandrian
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great place to start learning about unprocessed Sugars, Excellent Banana Creme Pie
Review: This is a great cookbook if you are wanting to learn more about using alternate sugars that are not processed or just want to bake with less sugar/added sugars. I’ve had it for a couple months and have gotten through much more of this cookbook than many others I own. This is probably due to the wonderful photography for every recipe which has convinced me to try them. The raspberry sorbet was awesome and had a nice tart flavor, we also liked the honey almond coffee cake, Chocolate Creme Pie…We have enjoyed all of the ones we’ve done except for the lemon squares. I think the target audience is people who like to eat things in their natural/unprocessed state. People who usually drink whole milk or raw milk and aren’t worried so much about all the diet rules as much as much as moderation.I think the cinnamon rolls would be better with just regular brown sugar unless you have a really rich coconut palm sugar. Maybe use a South East Asian one not Wholesome’s. It just is lacking in flavor. One thing to note, the cinnamon rolls were not too heavy and they only had a 30 minute rise time.The granola is a great base recipe for granola. It sticks together really nice and has a sweet/savory flavor. We make the almond and oat part and then add our own dried fruit when we eat it.The apple danish spirals were beautiful but would be much better with a homemade laminate dough. The store bought puff pastry just isn’t that great.The banana creme pie was amazing. It only had 5 TBS. of sucanant and was super easy to make. Decreasing the added sugar allowed the sweetness of the banana to come through. It was rich and a wonderful banana flavor. Just great. Happy baking 🙂
Reviewer: Bobbie Hayes
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good but not my favorite.
Review: I like this book a bunch. Most of the recipes use various natural sugar substitutes. Sucanat (67 recipes), Coconut sugar(9 recipes), date sugar (2 recipes), honey (24 recipes), maple syrup (16 recipes), chocolate (11 recipes) and no added sweetener (11 recipes). I can only get sucanat at a health food store and it is quite expensive. Also, sucanat requires use of a spice grinder to make it finer for use.I was a bit disappointed. Then I noticed that each of the recipes with either sucanat or coconut sugar have the granulated sugar substitution also. That makes it more useful for me. I’ve had the book for a couple weeks and have only made two recipes using regular granulated sugar. Both had 30-50% less sugar than usual recipes and turned out well.I would buy the book knowing about the use of alternative sugars because of the ability to still use granulated sugar. Some of my friends who are more into alternative cooking are really happy about the book. All in all, the techniques are totally accessible, the ingredients are generally available (especially if you live in a larger city) and if you don’t mind having to further process the sucanat, it’s great.
Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A book a mother can love
Review: I bought this book for my mother and she loves it.If I could rate this book a 6 I would.My mother says this book has great alternatives to sugar or less sugar in the recipes you find in this book.Some of the recipes in the book include lemon-poppy seed cookies,chocolate chip cookies,peach cobbler,berry snack cake,as well as other things you can bake.So if you like baking and want less sugar in things that you bake this is the book for you.
Reviewer: Linda Lou
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: My order came very quickly and in perfect shape. I’m happy to add this book to my collection. ATK recipes produce perfect results every time (that is if you are good at following instructions). I made the lemon blueberry tart. It was amazing. My first attempt at making crust (I usually just buy it but this crust was made in the food processor so it was easy peasy) and it turned out beautifully.
Reviewer: Raymond T.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Wife loves it. Recipes are delish.
Reviewer: St-Louis France
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Bonne recettes
Reviewer: Izabela
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Quality recipes, quality book, quality …what I have come to expect from the American Test Kitchen!
Reviewer: Carol
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: excellent recipies good eating recipies
Price effective as of Apr 12, 2025 00:09:42 UTC
As an Amazon Associate Dealors may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
