"B" is for Banana Bread!

As y'all may or may not have heard, this week marked the end of yet another Bush Administration error. On Monday, a federal judge ordered the FDA to lift the Bush Administration-imposed ban on women under 18 procurring Plan B emergency contraception ("the morning after pill") without a prescription. The judge also urged the FDA to lift all restrictions on access to Plan B. We are now one step closer to ensuring that all women can avail themselves of safe and accessible contraception. So, in honor of the enhanced accessibility of Plan B, I bring you...banana bread!



This banana bread was sort of my own "plan B," as it were. I recently bought a bunch of bananas from Food Lion with the intention of eating them with my breakfast. They were Dole bananas, rather than my regular Chiquita bananas, but hey, a banana is a banana, right? Wrong! Oh, so very wrong. As it turns out, Dole bananas are incredibly sweet. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, they are disgustingly sweet. There is so much sweet, in fact, one can barely taste the banana. To say the least, I was displeased. So, I ran out and bought some of my beloved Chiquitas, but the conservationist in me just couldn't heave perfectly decent, if inedible, bananas into the compost. Finally, I decided that, in terms of bananas, what's bad for breakfast can be great for bread! And, as it turns out, I was right.





This bread tastes amazing! The walnuts were a great substitution, though I'd certainly be open to trying the chocolate chips next time. The bread was crispy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, and was particularly great with a little butter. The only trick seemed to be getting it to bake all the way through. This seems to be a recurring issue with banana bread; it can look quite done on the outside, but still be a goopy mess on the inside, especially near the bottom of the loaf, so make sure you always use a knife or skewer to stick down all the way to bottom of the bread pan when checking for doneness.

Overall, though, this is a tasty, healthy, low-sugar bread. In fact, I think it'll be perfect for breakfast :)

That's all for now, folks. Be sure to tune in next week when I start experimenting with decorating low-sugar sugar-cookies; this could seriously get ugly. Happy baking, y'all!

Oatmeal Cookie Update!

Last night's post was written immediately post-baking. The cookies were still warm, and as such, were perhaps not a great representation of the final, final product. So, a day and several cookies later, I've now drawn the hard-won conclusion that, in fact, after everything...the cookies are still awesome.

After cooling down and "settling," the cookies proved to be extremely moist and suprisingly light. They have a nice, warm brown-sugar smoothness to them with just a hint of a cinnamon kick. It occurs to me that it was technically incorrect of me to substitute the 1/2 c. dark brown sugar with the 1/2 c. Splenda Brown Sugar Blend (SBSB), only because the SBSB package instructs you to cut the amount by half when substituting for brown sugar; in other words, I should technically only have used 1/4 c. of the SBSB. But rules are for people who don't have a better idea, and I, for one, am quite pleased with the end result. (It is worth noting, though, that if you want a crispier cookie, reducing the SBSB wouldn't be a bad idea).

These cookies have passed two important tests today: 1) I've eaten several of them without going into a coma (or even significanly raising my glucose levels) and 2) They were a hit with the ladies in the Women's Group I facilitate out at the homeless outreach center where I work (and those ladies don't bullshit, believe me).

So, the oatmeal cookies were a hit. I think my next experiment from The Big Book of Diabetic Desserts will be the sugar cookies; I'm hoping to find a way to combine the diabetic sugar cookie recipe with the skills I pick up from Cookie Craft to make awesome Easter cookies for the fam (and a big thanks to my idol, Bakerella, for turning me on to the Cookie Craft book in the first place). But Easter's still a ways off, so I'm open to suggestions for what I should try out in the meantime. Pies, cakes, breads? Oh my!

"Crispy" Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies

I just found this amazing cookbook, The Big Book of Diabetic Desserts: Decadent and Delicious Recipes Perfect for People with Diabetes, by Jackie Mills. Published by the American Diabetes Association, the book contains "over 150 recipes that meet the ADA nutrition guidelines for people with diabetes." From what I can tell, most of the recipes call for some amount of real sugar, sometimes combining the real thing with a sugar substitute. But the real sugar amounts are low, and complete nutritional information is provided for each recipe. I just checked this out from my local library, and I already realize I'm going to have to buy my own copy in order to have time to try everything I want. (Also, if I have my own copy, I can spill things on it to my heart's content; a clean cookbook is an unloved cookbook).

So for my first experiment, I tried the "Crispy Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies." I love love looooove Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies, and this was the first low-sugar version I've found that wasn't absurdly complicated. And I have to say, they came out pretty darn good. They were definitely more chewy than "crispy," but that's how I like them, so I really didn't mind at all.




If anyone else gives this a try, let me know how it turns out for you.

That's all for now, y'all. Happy baking!

Hello and welcome!

Howdy! Welcome to Beyond Sugar and Spice, the diabetic baking blog with a feminist bent. Thanks for dropping in.

So, a little about me and my motivation for starting this blog:

I love to bake... a lot. I also love to eat what I bake. When I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes a little over a year ago, I thought my days of baking tasty treats that I could also enjoy were over. But not so! Since then, I've discovered a whole world of sugar free and low sugar baking recipes, many of which you'd never know weren't the "real" (i.e. sugar-riffic) thing. But all baking can be tricky, and diabetic baking can be a special challenge...particularly when you're working with sugar substitutes. And some "diabetic" baking recipes seem to make the assumption that having diabetes means you no longer have taste buds. Nothing is more frustrating than plugging away at a new recipe, only to find in the end that even the dog won't eat it. So my hope for this blog is that it will help other diabetic bakers, and bakers in general, weed out the bad recipes, get the most out of the good ones, and have a lot of fun along the way.

So, that's the "diabetic baker" part of this little enterprise, but I imagine you're wondering where feminism fits in? Well, for one thing, I am a feminist, and proud of it. In fact, feminism is at least partially responsible for my love of baking. I started baking in college to raise money for various women's rights organizations for which I volunteered, and realized in the process that I got a great deal of enjoyment out of both the baking itself and the watching people enjoy what I'd made. But more to the point, there's been some discussion lately about the rise of traditional "domesticity" among young women who call themselves feminists, with some folks arguing that you cannot be a feminist while partaking in such traditional "feminine" activities. So let's get something straight; I bake (and knit, for that matter) because I genuinely enjoy it, and not because I feel I "should," or because I'm being ironic. And what is the point of feminism, after all, if not to ensure that women, and all peoples for that matter, may do and be as they choose?

So, in the spirit of freedom of choice, I'm glad you've chosen to take a look at the blog, and I hope you enjoy what you find!