"Life is still sweet without sugar"

I recently worked with a client who requested for me to create pastry or dessert recipes that doesn't call for sugar or honey. For a minute or two, i thought it's almost 'mission impossible'. Sugar has a significant role in the 'success' of any pastry or cake. It gives the cake a moist and fluffy texture, the bread a nice tan after baking and most importantly sweet bliss for all dessert lovers. I eliminated almost 99% of all my recipe collection and was left with not many recipes to choose from... I'm sharing my 'incredible' 4 recipes here. The secret is using ingredients that already contain natural sugar, so addition sugar is not necessary.

Caramelized apple tart is the easiest to bake. All you need to do is to brush some margarine and apricot jam on the sliced apples and bake them for about 10 minutes in a hot oven. Serve with a crisp puff pastry.

The chocolate banana bread & butter pudding is my favourite. Rather than adding sugar into the custard mixture, i add sweetness by throwing in some sliced bananas and chocolate chips, and coat the bread with a layer of chocolate spread before baking. The custard mixture still set perfectly without any sugar. One bite into this pudding, i tasted the sweet fruity taste of bananas. I am so glad i choose to use bananas as it's strong aroma is absolutely well infused into the custard mixture!

Dark chocolate and apricot crunch, a rich fudge slice. I used 65% Valrhona sugar free chocolate in this treat. It's one of the only sugar free chocolate i can find in the market. This time, i borrowed the sweetness from dried apricot to give this melt-in-the-mouth treat it's sweetness. The chopped biscuit bits also adds texture to the fudge and can be replaced by other biscuits.

Mango yoghurt parfait. This treat is a 'deliteful' one. I used fresh mango juice and yoghurt to give this dessert it's flavour. Mango always does it's work, a special touch to any plain dessert!

Be convinced it's definitely possible to enjoy "No-Sugar Added" desserts. My client is right, "Life is still sweet without sugar'.