PSA: Sugar-free Crowd-Pleasers

It’s easier than you think to make fruit pies sugar-free (at least, in the “no added sugar” sense).

I’ve long adapted my favorite apple pie recipe for relatives with diabetes. While it isn’t much tougher than substituting added sugars for your favorite non-sugar sweetener, there are some extra tips I’ve picked up along the way:

• Be creative and experiment with sweeteners! One friend has had great success using no sweetener at all, and simply adding raisins to manipulate the taste.
• Since sugar tends to draw out the moisture from the fruit, the pie fillings seem dry when you mix them. It’s actually fine if you don’t fret about this: it tends to even out in the baking.
• Choosing fruit that gets mushier with baking will help keep the texture more moist.
• I’ve also added things like a liquid sweetener (Agave) and coconut oil to give a softer, richer texture to the finished product.

With just a few, simple adjustments, there’s no reason you can’t employ a fruit pie as a welcome surprise for folks watching sugar intake.