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Baking on Trim Healthy Mama

 

Are you on the Trim, Healthy Mama plan? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please take a look at this introduction. If you are new to the plan, or simply considering the plan, you may be confused and overwhelmed by the different flours, sweeteners, etc that you see many THM recipes call for.

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If you are an avid baker like me, you may be struggling with replacing good old all-purpose flour and sugar with healthier alternatives. So I decided to put together a little round-up featuring different baking blends and helps. Plus, I added my own substitute for Gentle Sweet, which is my new go-to for dessert making. 🙂

On Plan Flours and Baking Blends

Oat Fiber-Oat fiber is a favorite on Trim Healthy Mama, because it is pure fiber. It helps give volume and texture, but adds no calories. However, it is pretty bland on its own, so you’ll usually want to blend with other flours for best results. Do not confuse oat fiber with oat bran or oat flour. I could not find this at my Natural Grocers–they didn’t even know what I was talking about.

Coconut flour-Coconut flour is high in fat and fiber, but less goes further. When replacing other flours, you use 1/3 as much coconut flour and add an egg. I find coconut flour to be one of the least expensive on-plan flours, usually running about $4/lb. You can find it at many grocery stores now, and even Sam’s Club. If you can’t find it there, you can get it on Amazon.

Almond flour-Almond flour is dense and best used in combination with other flours. Can almond flour and almond meal be used interchangably? That depends. They are not the same, but if texture is not super important, you can use meal. Things made with almond meal will be denser and meal still contains the outer husk and (eek!) phytates. So I try to go with actual flour. Almond flour is probably the most expensive on-plan flour. Wellbee’s is probably the most fine, but not the cheapest.

Baking Blend

On Plan Baking Blends

THM Baking Blend-This low fat, high fiber baking wonder has been constantly out of stock on the Trim Healthy Mama website. But, they are moving to a new supplier and expect to have more by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, if you want to make your own, there are many alternatives out there.

Sherri’s gluten free baking mix does not have the protein powder or hydrolyzed collagen, so it uses less ingredients.

This blend from RunAmok Mama has similar stats to the THM blend, but it uses several different ingredients.

Nili’s Baking Mix, from Crissy Benoit in Love is the one I personally use.

Briana Thomas offers a nut free baking blend recipe.

A few others: Low Carb Baking Mix (higher in fat), FP Easy Mix and S Easy Mix from Reye’s Place.

On Plan Sweeteners

Erythritol-This is a sugar alcohol and is a by-product of corn. It does not raise blood sugar and is not absorbed by the bloodstream. It is about 70% as sweet as sugar. Downside: It can leave a “cool” feeling in your mouth which some people dislike. It doesn’t bother me like it does my husband.

Xylitol: This is another sugar alcohol that does have a (very) small impact on blood sugar, but is still ok on the plan. It is about the same sweetness as sugar and probably tastes the closest, BUT it is not for everyone.

Downside: Some people report mild to severe discomfort in their digestive system when consuming xylitol. Xylitol made from birch is said to be gentler on the tummy that that made from corn. Also, xylitol is known to be toxic to dogs. So please tread carefully with this sweetener.

Stevia: Stevia is gaining popularity in the natural food world and if you have a good, pure stevia powder, a little goes a long way. It is best mixed with other sweeteners.

Downside: It tends to leave a bit of a weird aftertaste if you use too much. Also, it can be difficult to find a good stevia powder, as many have added fillers or are more bitter than others.

Besides the THM stevia, available in their store, I sometimes use Stevia Select. Stevia Select also has a liquid stevia, which Trim Healthy Mama does not have (yet).

They also have flavored liquids, but I haven’t tried those yet. What Trim Healthy Mama does have, however, is a 4 oz bag of stevia. I know, it’s only 1/4 of a pound, but it will last you quite a while. Even with shipping, it comes out to the best deal.

“Sugar-free” Brown Sugar-This recipe from Gwen’s Nest technically has a tiny amount of sugar, but it is plan approved. I like to use 1/2 xylitol (if you can have it) and 1/2 erythritol for this, and a couple drops of maple flavoring. If you just use erythritol, you might get the “cool” taste we don’t like.

This brown sweet mix from Around the Family Table is a little more potent, and measures about 1/3 cup in place of 1 cup brown sugar. The recipe written as is makes a lot.

If you prefer to purchase, Besti sugar free brown sweetener is on plan, made with monk fruit and allulose and is available on Wholesome Yum and Amazon.

Sweet Blend (now called Super Sweet)-This erythritol/stevia combo is available in the THM store and it is also super easy to make your own.

Homemade Gentle Sweet

Gentle Sweet–This blend is a favorite of most people following THM. It minimizes the cooling effect or erythritol, the bitterness of stevia and the digestive issues of xylitol. Please note, however, this is still toxic to dogs!

Gentle Sweet Substitute–Many have asked for a homemade gentle sweet recipe, mainly because they already have all the ingredients. Another reason some would desire an alternative, is because the THM xylitol is made from corn, and xylitol from birch is said to be gentler on the tummy. And because I like to buy my erythritol and birch xylitol in bulk, I like to make my own homemade Gentle Sweet.

You can also read about options for making homemade Gentle Sweet with in-store sweeteners and stevia free sweet blends in my post exclusively on Trim Healthy Mama sweeteners.

All About Trim Healthy Mama Sweeteners

Monk fruit extract and chicory root (inulin) are also acceptable sweeteners, though they are not given as much attention as the other three, and are not used in the Trim Healthy Mama recipes. Beware of monkfruit with malodextrin, like Monkfruit in the Raw.

Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener contains only monk fruit and erythritol, so it would be acceptable on plan.

Other popular, on-plan sweeteners are Swerve, Pyure and Truvia. These are easier to find in your grocery store, but everyone has a a different preference of what they prefer.

Swerve is stevia free, and Pyure and Truvia are stevia/erythritol combinations.

Baking Extras!

Here are a few more baking aids to help you on your journey to Trim Healthy baking success!

Sweetened condensed milk-Counting All Joy shows how easy it is to make dairy-free sweetened condensed milk in the crockpot! If you don’t need dairy free Joy Filled Eats has a recipe for on-plan sweetened condensed milk. My Montana Kitchen has a recipe for sugar free sweetened condensed milk that also looks good.

Corn Syrup-She Calls Me Hobbit shows how to make sugar free light or dark “corn” syrup. You will need to adjust sweetener according to what you use.

Cocoa Powder-For any good baker, unsweetened cocoa powder is almost a necessity. My personal favorite is Rodelle, but any unsweetened cocoa powder works!Chocolate ChipsLily’s brand is my favorite on-plan chocolate chips, but Choc Zero and Bake Believe are also good options. And of course, you can also get the Trim Healthy Mama chocolate chips, if they happen to be in stock.

Another inexpensive option is to make your own baking chips. Consider these Stevia Sweetened Chocolate Chips by Wonderfully Made and Dearly Loved. She also has recipes for White Chocolate Chips and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chips.

Sprinkles-Sometimes you need sprinkles to add a little fun to your creations! You can purchase these sugar free sprinkles from Amazon. Or see how to make sugar free sprinkles at Bubbly Nature Creations!

Caramel Sauce-Check out the Trim Healthy Mama page for a great caramel sauce recipe that you can drizzle on your baked goods! Update: Here’s a similar, but slightly improved caramel sauce.

You can also purchase an on plan caramel sauce at the Explorado Market website.

Natural Food Coloring-People on THM will vary in how important “natural” food colorings are to them, as they can be pricey. But I have seen India Tree coloring recommended by those choosing to use all natural. This basic set includes the primary colors, which of course can be mixed to make other colors!

Flavorings/extracts: I prefer to get my extracts from Olive Nation because they don’t contain the propylene glycol that is in conventional extracts. Trim Healthy Mama also carries 12 flavors of extracts.

I also found this really cute set of mini measuring spoons, used for volumes less than 1/2 a tsp! They are especially great for measuring things like stevia and there is a “doonk” sized one as well!

If you prefer prepackaged baking mixes, make sure you check out my post on Packaged Foods that can be used on Trim Healthy Mama!

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If I think of more things to add I will be sure to update. And if you have any suggestions, please do let me know!

You can find many of my recommended Trim Healthy Mama friendly baking products here on Amazon!

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46 Comments

    1. Hi Julia. Can you tell me where you are seeing that this is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies? It could be someone mistakenly posted a link to this post saying it was a recipe. Did you click onto this post from Facebook or Pinterest? So sorry for the disappointment!

  1. How much monk fruit is equal to gentle sweet.

    I need the conversion? Yikes …help?

    Making Christmas sweets and ran out of gentle sweet!!!

    1. Hi Tracy. By monkfruit I’m guessing you mean a monkfruit/erythritol blend such as Lakanto? If so, you would need twice as much as Gentle Sweet. Lakanto measures like sugar and GS is twice as sweet. So if the recipe calls for 1/2 cup Gentle sweet, you’d want to use 1 cup monkfruit blend. If you’re talking about pure monkfruit extract, you’d want something like a scant 1 1/4 tsp to 1 cup Gentle Sweet.

  2. Where do you get your flavoring extracts? What is the cheapest pure vanilla that you know of? Can you buy extracts in bulk somewhere?

    1. Hi Janessa. I get most of my extracts at Olive Nation. I like this brand because most of the extracts don’t use Propylene glycol and you can buy in larger bottles. As for vanilla, I’m currently using a big bottle of McCormick’s I got at Sam’s, but the comparable size from Olive Nation is not much more. I’m not sure what is the cheapest vanilla, but this is what I use personally.

  3. I have pets and would like to keep xylitol out of the house. Do you know if I could just omit it or if I would need to increase the amount of the erythritol?

    1. If you want to avoid xylitol altogether, you might consider making your own “super sweet” by adding 1 tsp pure stevia to 1 cup erythritol. It’s about twice as sweet as Gentle Sweet. Truvia I believe measures about the same as Gentle Sweet and only contains stevia and erythritol.

  4. The link for the corn syrup has been disabled. No recipe can be found now. Do you happen to have it so I can print it?

    1. Oh no really? I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately I don’t have the recipe. I will have to see if I can find another one to replace it.

  5. Thanks for all the useful tips and links. This has been a great help for me. I have a question on the gentle sweet recipe. Do I have to add stevia at all to this blend? Does it make a difference in the role of baking and using it in anyway? I have a high intolerance to that bitter taste. I am so happy to say after never thinking I could use something other than real sugar in my coffee, baking, etc.. I came across gentle sweet and it’s fabulous reviews. So I bought it to try before buying all the copycat recipe ingredients and wasting a bunch of money if I did not like it. To my surprise with very skeptical disbelief that I would find anything to make me even slightly ok with eliminating white sugar this is the one. I just ever so slightly can taste a hint of bitter. I am assuming it is the stevia but not 100% positive. So I am wondering if it could be omitted all together to see if this makes it even more amazing alternative for me?

    1. Well, I guess you don’t have to add stevia, but you would not have nearly the sweetness. You would have to use about double (perhaps more) to get your desired sweetness, but then you would be ingesting more xylitol, which could cause stomach upset. Also, it may end up being a fair bit more expensive. Have you checked out my post on THM Sweeteners? There are some stevia free alternatives listed there. You could possibly try the monkfruit blend. However, pure monkfruit (not a blend) is about twice as expensive as pure stevia.

    1. Both the THM Gentle Sweet and my homemade one are already in powder form, but they are about twice as sweet as sugar. There is also a powdered Swerve that measures cup per cup for powdered sugar. So if you really need the bulk (some icings, for example) that is a good option.

  6. May I suggest that you check out “Whey Low” sweetener made by Viva Lac. You can find it on the internet on the Viva Lac web page. They make a diabetic sugar that is 1/4th the calories of cane sugar. Since I am allergic to all corn products I can use whey low. It can be substituted for cane sugar in baking and other recipes. I have enjoyed making jellies and jams with it.

    1. I haven’t heard of this, but thanks for the recommendation. It may be helpful for others unable to have corn products.

  7. Do you have suggestions on the proportions for making diy Lakanto? I’m not a fan of stevia and I have dogs so I prefer not to have xylitol around (accidents happen).

  8. I thought the new Swerve didn’t have Stevia? I am allergic and just bought this at the store because it doesn’t have Stevia listed? but now concerned to use it.

    1. As far as I know, Swerve does not have stevia in it. And because stevia is sooo much sweeter than sugar, I don’t think they’d be able to add it and still have it measure cup-per-cup for sugar, as Swerve does.

  9. you’re page is really hard to read with the light font on the black background. Its really hard for me so I’m not. ;-(

    1. Swerve measures cup for cup for sugar and Gentle Sweet is about 1/3 cup per sugar. Truvia is supposed to be 1:1 with Gentle Sweet and it is available in most grocery stores.

  10. Hi,
    I have the Sweet Blend but would like to see if I can add Xylitol to it to convert it into Gentle Sweet. Since I hate the taste of Stevia but don’t know what to do with this Sweet Blend and don’t want to spend more money on buying Gentle Sweet in case I run into the same problem , thought I might try and see if you’ve had experience in changing the taste? Any recommendations for ratio of Xyitol to add? Thanks much!

    1. I haven’t actually tried that yet, but I would probably start with adding an equal amount of xylitol with the sweet blend. Super sweet (formerly sweet blend) has 1 tsp stevia per cup of erythritol. If you happened to have any plain erythritol, you could try 1/2 cup sweet blend, 1/4 cup erythritol and 3/4 cup xylitol. You could also try 1/2 cup sweet blend and 1 cup xylitol, but if you are sensitive to xylitol, the xylitol ratio may be too high and it won’t be so “gentle.” Those combos would probably give you close to the flavor you want though.

  11. Hi, I have a question about the gentle sweet recipe. Since it is ground up, would that make it more concentrated or is it still a 1 to 1 ratio with the thm brand gentle sweet mentioned in their recipes? I don’t have any left to see how “granular” it is. I know the sweet blend is pretty much a powder making it very concentrated. Hope this makes sense! Thanks 🙂

    1. Hi Kayla. I also grind my sweetener up (after measuring), so it is about the same density. I have used it 1 to 1 with no problems, but you will learn to adjust to your own taste. This is true even if you use the “official” Gentle Sweet. 🙂

  12. Hi
    Thanks for the tips! As I am converting old recipes to new THM versions, can I use the THM baking blend as a 1 to 1 replacement for white flour or is there a better conversion ratio?

    Thanks in advance for your help.
    Marie

    1. Hi Marie. I’m not sure about conversion with all purpose flour. The baking blend contains coconut flour, which is much more absorbent than regular flour. I haven’t started converting recipes yet, but I would probably try 3/4 cup baking blend in place of 1 cup AP flour. However, there may already be a plan friendly version of some of the recipes you’re looking to convert. I’d check pinterest and the THM group board before experimenting too much.

    1. Hi Helen. I buy mine on Amazon. The xylitol brand I bought is currently out of stock on the 5 lb bag, but if I needed some now, I would buy this Birch xylitol. It comes out to about $4.50 per pound–a great price! And I buy Anthony’s erythritol. It comes out to about $6 per pound. Hope this helps!

      1. That you’re with her at all on the link comes out to over $7 a pound. Is that the right link or have they gone up in price do you think?

        1. Sorry, meant to say “erythritol” on the link comes out to seven dollars a pound. (darn dictation interpretation)

        2. Hi Jane. Are you referring to the Anthony’s erythritol? I just looked at the link and it says $29 ($5.80/b) for the 5 lb bag and $15 ($6/lb) for the 2.5 lb bag. Are you thinking of another link?

    2. Hello! The link to the birch xylitol you gave is a product called Xlear Xylosweet, not a birch xylitol. Can you name the brand you normally use? Some of them on Amazon are questionable as to whether they are really manufactured from birch, as people are reporting that the label doesn’t specify birch when they get it in the mail, or that it gives them the terrible side affects known to be caused from corn based xylitol. Reviewers are saying they order and find out it’s manufactured in China (might not be what it states on the label?). Thanks in advance 🙂

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