Life with less sugar is healthier! Grandma Trude knows that too and is about to try something new. The apples that she grows in her garden play a major role in this.
My dears,Autumn’s here, and luckily it’s brought a few days of sunshine alongside the cold and fog. Ideal conditions for picking all those apples from my trees. Inge and I managed to harvest a colossal 40 kg together in my garden! After that we set straight to work processing them, which was far more fun in our little team of friends than it would have been on my own.
Our latest discovery is turning apples into syrup. For health reasons we’re both looking for substitutes to standard household sugar – and the search engine simply overwhelmed us with relevant terms. There’s an incredible range of alternatives these days! Are you familiar with coconut blossom sugar? Have you ever heard of erythritol? Or birch sugar? In the end we decided on home-made concentrated apple syrup, a healthy alternative to sugar and a practical use for my vast quantities of apples.
Yes to sweetness, no to sugar
We all know that you’re supposed to consume as little sugar as possible. Tooth decay, diabetes, heart disease, gut problems, fatty liver, and allegedly depression as well: all those things can be the consequence of too much sugar, but I’d rather spare us the gloomy details here. You see, it also makes me think of my beloved Christstollen. Maybe you remember, I always start my baking promptly by the end of October. This year I’m simply going to try making it with apple syrup instead of sugar, I’m sure it’ll be fine.So I can’t quite manage without sweetness, but I can cut out sugar. The thing is, apple syrup is easy to use and absolutely delicious – or better still pear syrup, which has a neutral flavour. And also you’ve got some lovely personal gifts if you decant your product into pretty bottles.
First of all Inge and I squeezed the juice ourselves, without using a steam juicer or fruit press at all. It was a success, although it was pretty hard work. But you can use shop-bought naturally cloudy apple juice instead.
Home-made apple syrup
And here’s the easy-peasy recipe: you pour the apple juice into a saucepan – as a rule of thumb you need two litres to produce around 250 ml. We used an extra-large cooking pot and ten litres of juice – because we had so much of it and we only wanted to have the cooker on for such a long time once. The thing is, you do have to leave the juice to simmer away on a medium heat for three to four hours, until it darkens. It’s fine for it to bubble.This concoction goes into sterilised glass bottles with a screw top and after cooling it can be put in the fridge. In there, the juice is meant to keep really well for around six months – at least we hope it does, after all we’ve only just finished it. Anyway, the taste is fantastic, we’re both absolutely thrilled!
“Dattelpamp” à la Laura
My granddaughter Laura from Berlin told me about her sugar alternative: a date paste that she lovingly calls “Dattelpamp” (date mush). I think it’s quite good too, because 100 grams of dates have around 100 fewer calories than the same amount of sugar. Dates give us plenty of fibre and cause blood sugar to rise more slowly. They also contain minerals, antioxidants and B vitamins.Unfortunately Laura’s date paste only keeps for a few days in the fridge, but it’s quicker to make than the apple syrup.
Here’s how:
- Cover stoned dates with water and leave to soak overnight.
- Drain off and save the water.
- Puree the dates and gradually add the water back in until it becomes a creamy paste – Laura’s “Pamp”.
I’ll try it out and maybe pop in some cinnamon as well. It’s a spice that gives an additional sensation of sweetness when used in baking, along with cardamom.
Incidentally, when you bake you can always substitute the sugar with bananas. I do that from time to time with my great-grandchildren when I treat them to the pancakes they adore. They haven’t rumbled me yet, because I always serve them with apple puree – they just think my pancakes taste different to the ones their mum makes.
And with tomato sauces and tomato soups for instance, you can sweeten the dish a little with apples, or even better carrots.
Test it for yourself – I think everything’s worth a try, and it’s certainly healthier!
Wishing you every success and a cheery low-sugar autumn!
Yours, Trude
October 2020