Infused with the goodness of nature, Stevia is heat stable up
to 200 degrees Celsius or 392 degrees Fahrenheit. This particular trait
allows Stevia to be used for cooking and baking a variety of foods,
unlike artificial sweeteners like Aspartame. All over the world Stevia
is being used to create the most scrumptious dishes from the delectably
sweet chocolate chip cookies to ginger ale. Chefs around the globe are
using Stevia and its products to create the finest and most palatable
dishes.
Iced Lemon Tea / Ginger
Tea
What
you’ll need
- ¼ tsp Stevia
- 2 tea bags
- ½ litre water
- juice of 2 large lemons
- 2 tbsp fresh juice from
freshly grated ginger
How to make
- Bring
water to boil in a pot
- Add tea bags
- Allow it to cool and remove tea bags
- Add lemon
juice
- Add ginger juice
- Refrigerate for
at least one hour to allow flavours to blend in perfectly and serve
chilled.
Serves 3 glasses
Banana Muffins
What you’ll need
- ½
cup refined oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup
yogurt
- 1 large ripe banana (mashed)
- 2
tsp Stevia extract
- ½ tsp vanilla
essence
- 1 ½ cup flour (maida)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking
powder
How
to make
- Grease muffin
moulds.
- Beat the oil and eggs in a mixing bowl, add
yogurt, mashed banana, Stevia and vanilla essence.
- Sift
flour, baking soda & baking powder, add to the liquid mixture and
beat till the batter smoothens
- Pour into greased muffin
mould and bake for 30 minutes.
Serves 12 muffins
Gajar
Ka Halwa 
What you’ll need
- 2 kg
Carrots
- 1 ¼ tsp Stevia
- 2 tbsp
raisins
- 2 tbsp crushed cashew
- 250g
khoya
- 1 tbsp ghee
How to make
- Grate 2kg pre washed and
peeled carrots and put them in the cooker to boil, do not add any
water. Allow carrots to cook in their own juice.
- Give
two whistles to the cooker and remove it from heating and put the
carrots in the karhai.
- Let the carrot juice dry, this
process would take 15-20 minutes. Once all the water has dried up, add
a table spoon of ghee and let the carrots remain on heat for another 5
minutes so that carrots do not stick to the karhai anymore.
- Break the khoya block into two parts and grate one part and add to
the carrots. Add Stevia and keep on heating and sifting for at least 5
minutes.
- Remove from heat and add the rest of khoya to
the carrots, crumble the khoya over the carrots and stir all the while.
Let the chunks of the second half of khoya remain in the halwa. Serve
hot.
Serves 8
Sweet and Sour Vegetables
What
you’ll need
- 8-10 tomatoes
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 large capsicum
- 100g beans
- 100g cauliflower
- 100g
baby corn
- 100g broccoli
- ½ tsp
Stevia
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 1 tsp soya
sauce
- ½ tsp chilli sauce
- Salt to
taste
- Crushed pepper to taste
- 2 tsp
cornflour
How to make
Boil 8-10 large tomatoes, blend them and sieve them.
Make smooth puree out of it. Cut capsicum into 1 inch by one inch
pieces, beans into one inch long pieces, cauliflower into small
flowerets. Cut each baby corn into half and then into pieces of one
inch each, broccoli into small flowerets & dice carrots. Put the
cut vegetables into the puree and give one whistle in the cooker and
immediately take the steam off the cooker and let it be on heat without
the lid.
Add Stevia, salt,
pepper vinegar, soya sauce, chilli sauce to it. Make a paste of
cornflour in water and add it to the above mixture and keep stirring it
for 5 minutes. Remove it from heat and serve hot with rice or
noodles.
Serves 8
Apple Crunch 
What you’ll need
- 4 medium sized apples (½ kg)
- 2 tsp
Stevia
- ½ tsp cinnamon (dalchini) powder
- 1 tbsp lemon
Topping
- 4 slices bread
- 1 tbsp butter
- ¾ tsp
Stevia
How to
make
- Peel and thinly slice
the apples. Sprinkle 1 tsp Stevia, cinnamon and lemon juice and mix
gently.
- Place the apples in a greased, shallow oven
proof dish.
- For topping, remove the side crust from the
bread slices and break into pieces. Place the broken slices in a mixer
and grind to get fine crumbs.
- Melt butter in a non
stick pan and add the fresh bread crumbs and cook on medium flame till
crisp and golden.
- Cover the apples with these crisp
crumbs.
- Sprinkle 1 tea spoon Stevia over the
crumbs.
- Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake in a
preheated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes.
- Remove the
foil and bake again for 10 minutes.
Serves 4
Rabri 
What you’ll need
- 1 litre toned milk
- 1 slice bread - sides removed
& ground to crumbs in a mixer
- 1 ½ tsp
Stevia
How to
make
- Place milk in a non
stick pan or kadhai and simmer till reduced to half.
- Add fresh bread crumbs. Cook till a layer of rabri forms. Add
Stevia and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat.
- Garnish with blanched
almonds and cashews.
Phirni 
What you’ll need
- ½ kg Milk
- 3 tbsp basmati rice - soaked for
30 minutes
- 1 tsp Stevia
- ¼ tsp
cardamom powder
Garnish - 5-6 almonds (soaked in hot water & peeled and
chopped)
How to
make
- Soak rice for ½
hour. Drain the water and blend the rice to smooth paste in a mixer
with 2-3 tbsp milk.
- Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan.
Remove from heat and add the rice paste, stirring
continuously.
- Return to flame. Cook on low heat for
10-15 minutes till thick.
- Add Stevia and cardamom
powder and keep on sim flame for 2-3 minutes.
- Remove
from heat and cool.
Chocolate Mousse 
What you’ll need
- 2 ½ cups toned milk
- 2 tbsp
cornflour
- 3 tbsp cocoa
- 1 ½ tsp
full Stevia
- ½ tsp butter
- 2
½ tsp gelatin
- 2 cups thick curd - hang for
½ hour in a muslin cloth and squeeze well to remove all
whey
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla essence
- 2
tsp chocolate sauce to garnish
How to
make:
- Dissolve cornflour in ½ cup warm
milk.
- Put cocoa in a heavy bottomed pan. Pour ½
cup water on it and mix. Keep on fire and stir continuously on low heat
for about 2 minutes till a dark paste is ready. Remove from
fire.
- Add the rest of the milk to cocoa paste and mix
well using a wire whisk. Mix the cocoa on the sides of the pan nicely
with the milk.
- Keep on fire. When it starts boiling,
add the dissolved cornflour paste, stirring continuously. Stir till the
milk turns slightly thick, like custard and coats the spoon. Add 1
½ tsp Stevia to it. Heat for another two minutes and mix in
butter. Keep the chocolate custard aside.
- Stir gelatin
in ¼ cup water. Pour mixture in a small pan, stir on low flame
till gelatin dissolves. Remove from fire and add gelatin to the
chocolate custard. Let it cool down.
- Whip the hung curd
with a whisk till smooth. Add essence while whipping.
- Add the curd mix to the cooled chocolate custard and mix
well.
- Check sweetness. If less, add ½ spoon
Stevia more depending on sourness of curd.
- Transfer to
individual serving cups or a dish and keep in the fridge for 3-4 hours
or till set. Garnish with a swirl of chocolate
sauce.
Serves
4
Chocolate Cake 
What you’ll
need
- 200g flour (maida)
- 50g
butter
- ½ cup water
- 1 ¼
tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 40g cocoa
- 1 ¼ tsp soda
- 6
eggs
- 3 ½ tsp Stevia
- 100g
curd
How to
make:
- Beat butter, Stevia & eggs and curd
till light and fluffy.
- Sieve flour, cocoa, baking
powder and soda together.
- Add to the above
paste.
- Pour into a greased container and bake at
200°C for 40 minutes.
COOKING AND BAKING WITH STEVIA
Stevia's
excellent stability against pH, salt and/or high temperature conditions
makes it an ideal sugar substitute for many baking and cooking
applications. The same cannot be stated for aspartame, saccharin and
most other synthetic sweeteners.
Heat destroys these synthetic sweeteners, at times as low as
86° F, or 30° C, leading to well publicized negative side
effects. This is one of the reasons why the tastes of artificial
sweeteners, once poured into hot coffee or tea and left standing,
changes significantly. Stevia is compatible with salts, organic acids
and other natural sweeteners such as sucrose, molasses, barley malt,
honey, fructose and sorbitol. It does not ferment, colour or
precipitate. It can be used in appetizers and beverages, soups, salads
and vegetables, breads and rolls, casseroles, pies and pastries.
However, Stevia does not work well with yeast breads which need the
"body of sugar" to rise. One should experiment to find out
the right combination of Stevia (for sweeteners) and sugar (for the
rising effect) to create delicious low sugar breads and
pastries.
COOKING
Stevia is the ideal sugar substitute to use when
cooking and baking, as it is heat stable to 200 degrees Celsius (392
degrees Fahrenheit) and non-fermentable.
Index
*tsp- tea spoon
**tbsp-
tablespoon
