Sugar-free treats

Sugar-free recipes don't always interest Mama Squirrel too much; that is, the ones that require either some kind of artificial sweetener or things like a whole can of fruit juice concentrate. The results (in her opinion) don't usually live up to the effort required, and that much fruit juice is still a sugar, yes?

But here's a recipe for Banana-Prune Bread that we have tried and found pretty good. It came out of a sugar-free cookbook years ago, and I don't know which one. If you do, please let me know so I can give proper credit. This is posted especially for our friends at the Common Room who are giving sugar a rest this month.

Banana-Prune Bread

Makes 1 loaf or 12 slices.

2 medium ripe bananas
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup unsweetened prune juice with pulp [my note: I only know one kind of prune juice, the regular old supermarket kind, and that seems to work fine]
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup chopped pitted prunes
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamom
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F; spray a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray, set aside.

In large bowl mash bananas; stir in wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients separately, mix with banana mixture until just blended.

Spoon into prepared pan; bake 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely.


Mary Carroll's recipe for Dried Fruit Bars, posted back in November, is also more-or-less sugar free, depending on what kind of granola you use for the base. A simpler dried-fruit recipe is the one that some people call "sugar plums"; you run approximately equal amounts of three or four kinds of dried fruit through the food processor (some people add nuts to this), roll into small balls, and roll the balls in some kind of coating--coconut, ground oatmeal, etc. Our favourite combination is dates, figs, apricots and raisins, but other fruits will work fine.