Substitute

As I've mentioned, it's a busy, busy time for the secret (and currently intermittent) knitter. I've tried to cook more this week to combat the various things I've been dealing with. Time in the kitchen can be a good way of getting out of my head and simply focusing on the matter at hand.

I've been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies all week but didn't get around to doing it tonight. For this batch I elected to mix things up and use an ingredient I've never used before: blue agave nectar.

My mom and one of my brothers are on some special diet that strikes me as being excessively restrictive, but that's neither here nor there. They can't have white sugar, among other things. Naturally, their dietary requirements was quite the topic of discussion--and a driver of some food selections--during the holidays. Long story short, blue agave nectar and stevia are among the sweeteners they are permitted. I received some of the former to try out as a sugar replacement, so I finally put it to use for these cookies.

Per the information I found on the web, I cut the amount of sugar needed by twenty-five percent--this stuff is sweeter--and lowered the oven's temperature by twenty-five degrees. I may have left the cookies in a minute or two longer than usual, but I was just using the upper range of the suggested baking time.

So how did it work? The dough didn't have the graininess that I sometimes get when making these with white sugar, but in general it tasted the same and had similar consistency. The baked product has a lighter, almost cake-like texture than what I typically get. I can detect a slight difference taste-wise, sort of as if there was honey in the cookies.

As experiments go, this one was a success.