Page 2 - Mini Cooking School

Natural Sweeteners
In this lesson, you will learn about the most common natural sweeteners.
Dates
Dates will help you in delivering the sweetness and creating the stickiness for a raw cake crust and energy balls and bars.
Make sure they are not coated in sugar and pitted.
Date Paste
Simply let the dates soak in water over night, or for fast processing 30minutes in hot water. Blend them with the soaking. Depending on the consistency add some water. To reach a creamy consistency, use 1 cup of dates and 1⁄2 cup of water.
Date paste can be used any time you want to add sweetness to a recipe. You can swap sugar with date past to equal part. 1tbs sugar=1tbs date paste
Date past can be stored in the refrigerator up to a month. Bonus: To create salty caramel, use date paste and add salt to it.
Bananas
Bananas are a great substitute to sweeten any dishes. They are loaded with vitamins and minerals.
By using bananas, you can replace eggs in most of the recipes and are often used as egg replacement and to add stickiness to a desert.
Make sure bananas are full ripened. You can even freeze them to create ice cream or smoothies. It is not recommended to bake bananas, as minerals and vitamins will be destroyed by heat.
Honey
Raw, non-pasteurised or organic honey is a natural product to sweeten baking’s or dressings.
Maple Syrup
Maple syrup can be used for toffee and caramel flavored baking’s as it has a distinctive flavor to it.