Sweet treats for low carb diets

I make chocolate truffles as christmas gifts for my best customers in the shop. I'll probably use my usual recipe for this, but my mum is now struggling with diabetes, and I have other friends on low carb diets. I think if I make a truffle mix with extra dark chocolate, by the time I have added oil (coconut) the sugar content of the main truffle will be only 2 to 3 % which doesn't seem bad. I'd like to use a coating that gives a flavour kick that isn't sugar based.
I'm wondering cinnamon or chilli? Would a fizzy coating (tartaric acid/bicarb) work?
Has anyone any suggestions what I could try? Other suggestions for sweet/not sweet dessert like treats? Do you think even 2-3% sugar would be too much for a low carb diet as a small treat?

Hi Nancy,
I usually look at the total carbs... I'm not sure how much sugar/carbs would be in that with just 2-3%. Most people who are going on a serious low carb diet for health or other reasons keep it well below 25grams a day. My personal way of doing it is just smaller amounts of a treat or no treat at all.  

Something else to keep in mind is that if you can maintain it for a while, things will taste more sweet. An apple will become more sweet and cake becomes too sweet. I would tend towards fruits for sweetness if needed because it will come with a lot of nutrients and fiber, compared to straight sugar.

Specific to the question of the truffle... I'm always a fan of cinnamon... and I believe it has some blood sugar buffering ability.

If your low carb folks are also generally avoiding sweetened foods, the ones you listed are good. So are coffee, strong teas, mint, citrus zest, most any of the berries, and stronger nut flavors like hazelnut or black walnut.

If they're generally using sweeteners and eating "diet" foods, their taste buds will expect more typically sweet things.

I've no idea on the fizzy coatings.

Candy barks are great for complicated food issues, it's easy for everyone to see what's in it.

Two different health care professionals (and dear hubby) were sure I had diabetes.  I proved them wrong by eating low carb, mostly meat.

I find that it is easy to just have a meat for a meal.

If folks miss something sweet the best substitution is a fruit.

Yogurt is also a good go to.

My go to is dark chocolate.

Peanut better or cheese helpe satisfying a hunger attack.

There are three sweeteners that I have heard of that don't spike insulin:  monkfruit, stevia and erythritol.  Of these, the only one I have tried cooking with is erythritol, and it does have a slight aftertaste.  Maybe not noticeable to everyone?  My kids don't notice it;  we're all fairly low carb because of my husband's diabetes.  I can't speak for the other two sweeteners.

Monkfruit and stevia both cook well. I prefer monkfruit for things that are compatible with fruit flavors, and stevia for things that go better with green herbal / mint flavors. If you buy either, check the ingredients. There are lots of sweeteners sold that are mixes, but give one in the mix top billing.

I suppose what counts as sweet depends on her taste buds.

I have been following a (very) low carb diet for about 8 months now.  Ideally, I will remain ketogenic around the clock - that's the objective.

Anyway, I have been making a version of "fat bombs" - coconut based treats high in good fat, but low in carbs - fairly closely following one of the recipes given in Mark Sisson's book "The Keto Reset Diet".

Basically, I thoroughly macerate a volume of unsweetened flaked or shredded coconut, to which I add an approximately equal volume of coconut oil (which is solid at temperate climate room temperature), then add cocoa nibs (broken bits of cocoa bean) to taste.

To puree the coconut flakes, I've been using a batch coffee grinder (whirling blade thingy).  Ideally, you'd use a proper food processor ("no got") and keep at it until it's very smooth and quite a lot of the oil in the flakes has been released (10 minutes or more), but my process isn't as professional as all that, and the resulting confection has a little more "texture" than would be ideal if given as a present to someone else.  I like unsweetened coconut, neat, so the graininess doesn't really bother me.  I did try a hand cranked meat grinder with a nut butter plate, but that plugged up (it's an old design, with the blade on the opposite side of the structural support from the feed auger screw, so not ideal for fibrous feedstocks!).  Warming the coconut oil a bit will facilitate blending together with the pureed coconut.

You could add stevia, monkfruit or other sweetener, but I haven't been doing so.  Again, that's a "to taste" thing, and after some months with very little sweet stuff in my diet, even a small piece of fruit seems very sweet to me now.

Spoon it into small molds (mini-muffin or candy molds).  Or, pour into a larger ramekin, then slice like pie after it "sets" (I usually put the custard cup in the fridge for a while; leave it in there over night, and you'll need to chop it with a cleaver if you don't let it warm back up to nearer room temp!).

There are a bunch of other flavors of these so-called fat bombs given in Sisson's book, and you can find more online, as well.  This one works for me.

Anne Miller wrote:Two different health care professionals (and dear hubby) were sure I had diabetes.  I proved them wrong by eating low carb, mostly meat.

I read a fascinating book recently which was all about the prevalence of insulin tolerance, which is much more common in the population than people realise, and has a bunch of related health implications, and is a precursor step to developing diabetes. Sounds like you may have (or had?) insulin tolerance.

When I was on a low carb (actually "slow" carb) diet I stopped craving sweet treats almost entirely. When I wanted snacks I usually went for eggs, veggies, seeds and nuts. I kept a few medium boiled eggs in the fridge ready to snack on, had carrot sticks ready to go, peanut butter etc... I made batches of jerky. More recently We have been toasting seeds in a pan with a generous dash of soy sauce - they are dangerously moorish.

I would suggest going for umami flavours rather than sweet flavours.

Michael Cox wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:Two different health care professionals (and dear hubby) were sure I had diabetes.  I proved them wrong by eating low carb, mostly meat.  

I read a fascinating book recently which was all about the prevalence of insulin tolerance, which is much more common in the population than people realise, and has a bunch of related health implications, and is a precursor step to developing diabetes. Sounds like you may have (or had?) insulin tolerance.

What I had was the fact that I did not know they were going to do a blood test and I had a granola bar for breakfast which wrecked to blood test.

It is very important if having blood work done not to eat sweets prior to having the blood work and to fast after midnight.

It used to be that the patient was informed about the blood work and fasting after midnight.  Why did they stop doing that?