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Can you use ground dates or other ground dried fruits as a sweetener for cookies or other baked goods?

Another Look at Sweeteners

Fran Costigan - Another Look at Sweeteners

Recorded

This event was on July 5, 2023

Sweeteners and desserts go together like vegans and nooch. We do want our birthday cakes, holiday desserts. We also want to use wholesome ingredients and our vegan desserts to be unapologetically delicious. There’s important news in the granulated sweetener space and Chef Fran Costigan, the director of Vegan Pastry at Rouxbe and instructor for the Essential Vegan Desserts Course is back with Another Look at Sweeteners. Non-sugar sweeteners have been in the press with statements from the W.H.O to Dr. Gregor. Date sugar is available now in super fine grind and not all coconut sugars look the same. Does it matter? Join Chef Fran and find out. She will discuss the similarities and differences between vegan sweeteners and offer up some desserts for comparison.

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Question

Cathy Chapman

Can you use ground dates or other ground dried fruits as a sweetener for cookies or other baked goods?

Answer

You know, I would say in this case, I really like mixing sweeteners. So this is something that people are surprised about when they are, their palettes are adjusting and they go, well, that's not very sweet for some people. Kathy, I bet your cookies were sweet and for other people they might not have been. Why don't you, and I always say cut the recipe in half or maybe even buy a quarter and do a test. So to get your date paste cookies sweeter, you can also add pieces of dried dates. They are sweeter than the dried. They're sweeter than the date paste because there's no liquid added at all. And you can also mix some dried fruits that are as sweet. I love using prune puree. I think it's sweet and rich.

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com

Fran Costigan is internationally renowned as the authority on vegan desserts. Trained at the New York Restaurant School and Natural Gourmet Institute, Fran was a chef in both traditional and vegan pastry kitchens before moving into teaching over 20 years ago. A lifelong chocoholic and long time vegan, Fran’s latest book, Vegan Chocolate: Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy Free Desserts, (Running Press 2013) is for all who madly, deeply love chocolate desserts, whether or not dietary considerations are an issue. Her previous cookbook, More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally (Book Publishing Company 2006) is the basis of the Costigan Vegan Baking Boot Camp Intensive®. For more information, www.francostigan.com.