Tips for Making Low Carb Desserts

With the summer holidays here, it's time to bring out the desserts. Potlucks and picnics are great places to share low carb dishes, especially since you rarely find low carb options at such events. For those of us looking to quench some of the not so good carbs typically found in desserts, we do have low carb options. Here are some tips for making low carb desserts that are delicious and good for the low carb diet.

Sugar Substitutes

When making a low carb dessert, the first thing you must decide is what sort of sweetener you'll be using. My preferred sweetener is stevia, because it's a natural sweetener. The carbs are minimal, and the sweetening strength is much greater than that of sugar. I find that a single packet of powdered stevia is often enough to sweeten most single desserts. Other carb-watchers use Splenda with a great deal of success. Splenda measures like sugar and bakes well.

One problem with readymade low carb foods is that sweeteners are not always natural. Sometimes the only version of a low carb food also happens to incorporate artificial sweeteners in it. For those trying to avoid the artificial sweeteners, but still eat a lower carb diet, you need to look for unsweetened varieties of a food product and add your own sweetener.

Sugar Free Flavorings

Low carb diets allow sugar-free gelatin, as well as sugar-free pancake and coffee syrups for flavoring. Spices, such cinnamon and flavoring extracts, can also make a big difference with taste, and they add only miniscule amounts of carbs.

Label Cautions

The FDA allows a label to read "0" carbs when the carb content per serving is less than 1 carb. That means you can be adding up carbs that are .99 and lower per ingredient serving. The best rule-of-thumb when it comes to counting carbs is to count 1 carb for anything claiming 0 carbs--unless you know for certain that it's carb-free. What's more, just because a product says it's sugar-free, doesn't mean it's low in carbs. You must read labels.

Low Fat Dairy Versions

If you're also on a low fat diet, the usual full fat methods of going low carb are out. If your dessert includes cheese, you'll want to swap full fat cheeses for ricotta, low fat cottage cheese, or low fat or nonfat cream cheese. Low fat milk products can take the place of heavy creams. For a low carb dairy replacement, I prefer to use unsweetened vanilla flavored soymilk, with only 1 net carb.

If you look in the yogurt aisle of the grocery store, you can sometimes find yogurt in low carb versions. These make wonderful desserts all by themselves, and they can create a low carb creamy base for other desserts.

Cooking with Eggs

As far as eggs are concerned, eggs are perfect for low carb diets. However, if you're also watching your saturated fats, you'll want to swap all or part of the egg yolks in favor of using only fat-free egg whites.

Alternatives to Wheat Flour

Hardcore carb-counters often swap out some or all of the wheat flour in a recipe with higher protein flours, such as soy. This lessens the carb content of the dish. Another trick is to use nut flour or almond meal in place of milled wheat flour, particularly for pie crusts.

With these low carb versions of familiar foods, you'll be able to stick to your low carb lifestyle. Substitution is the name of the game. When it comes to lowering your carb intake, these tips can do just that for you--allowing you to still enjoy some of your favorite desserts.