If I haven’t already admitted it, I must confess that I love sweet breads. But I also deal with insulin resistance, so I have to be careful with my sugar and carb intake. So I’m always on the lookout for sugar alternatives to use around the house and in baking. In the past I’ve used stevia and Splenda, and I’ve gone to using raw organic sugar is lots of things recently. I received a sample of Xylitol to test out, and though I had heard of Xylitol and its benefits before, I’d never used it until today.

A family favorite at my house is Banana Chocolate Chip Bread, and I make it in my bread machine any time I have bananas getting over-ripe (which is actually not that often). My kiddos are at their grandparents’s for Spring Break, so I just happened to have 2 bananas needing to be used! I’m VERY happy with how the bread turned out, too. Here’s my recipe:

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

my Banana Chocolate Chip bread

1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
1 cup Xylitol
Liquid egg whites equal to 2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas
3 tbsp milk, mixed with 1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 – 3/4 cup chocolate chips

How I do it:
I use the Cake cycle on my bread machine, which mixes all the ingredients before cooking the bread. Add dry ingredients, except chocolate chips, to the bread machine first.  Then add liquid ingredients, including bananas.  At this point I start my bread machine, which warms up and then mixes everything up. When the “Add/Stir” beep sounds is when I add the chocolate chips and make sure to scrape the sides of the bread machine pan. Then I let the machine bake the bread through the end of the cycle when I have to add 30 minutes to my machine for it to finish baking.  Remove bread pan from machine, and let cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing to slice.

regular recipe:
Cream butter and Xylitol.  Add eggs, salt, vanilla and bananas.  Stir in flour and milk mixture.  Mix well, then add chocolate chips.  Bake in a greased loaf pan for 1 hour at 350F.

With the Xylitol, the bread batter mixed up like normal, and it rose just as a regular loaf usually does.  There is no aftertaste, and I only notice that the bread is perhaps a bit less sweet than my regular recipe with sugar.  That makes this Xylitol experiment a success in my book!

Knowing that it’s about as sweet as sugar, can be used just like sugar in about 95% of recipes, but with 75% fewer carbs, 40% fewer calories, and a glycemic index of only 7, I’ll be using Xylitol some more, experimenting with some of my other recipes too!

For more information on Xylitol and its MANY benefits, check out their website at: www.EmeraldForestXylitol.com (same site as www.XylitolUSA.com), and if you’re interested in ordering some Xylitol for yourself use the coupon code FIRST for 10% off your purchase!

Find more recipes in my Scrumptious Saturday and Scrumptious Sunday posts.