Hi! Yeah, we don't do Pinterest (which my daughter says tends to promote intellectual property theft/ copyright infringement) or Facebook (if you're not paying for it, you are ~not~ the end customer).
I'll have to check out those blogs you provided, though, thanks!
I have a number of cookbooks for people with diabetes, which have some really nice stuff in them but (of course) almost no baked goods. I do also have a small library of old cookbooks from the 1920s, 30s, and 1940s (plus a few from the 1800s) that I like to cook from. One of the 1940s ones has a wartime supplement in it that is really rather enlightening - recipes for baked goods that you would think absolutely required sugar having veg substituted in, that sort of thing. I've also got some recipes from the Minister of Food (WW2 UK) that use potatoes in place of flour, with no sugar added, which are really nice.
I have noticed that over the years the trend has been for baked goods, especially, to become more sweet at the loss of subtle flavors and textures. While some of the cakes from the 1930s Southern "special occasions" cake book could stun a diabetic a mile off, they are more of an exception than a rule. (At least, in my library.) There are some recipes for things like gingerbread that rely on molasses and the spices to "carry" the taste, and are really pleasant and relatively low carb. I much prefer the texture of the older recipes to what you'd get in a shop today, as well. There is a definite texture thing going on that you don't have in a "from scratch" product.
Right now I've got an old hippy bread cookbook (Uprisings) out, and am rising some oatmeal/wholemeal/spelt bread in the kitchen. It is making the front of the house smell like yeast bread and I am soooo looking forward to putting it in to bake. It uses 1/4 cup of honey and makes two big loaves (it promises), so I'm hoping it will come out well. I have never actually made this one, so fingers are crossed! The honey has a better glycemic index than sugar, and the oats add fiber, which helps with the glycemic index of the whole loaf. Most of the time when I make something for every day I use almond flour and oatmeal, with only a very small amount of spelt or hard white wheat, and get a pleasant product. When the current bread is done baking I'll be making blueberry bread, with the fresh blueberries being almost all the sweetener, using the almond/oat/spelt flour mix. I've made that one before and it comes out great.
In the States I liked Truvia Baking blend - cane sugar, Stevia, and Erythritol - for baked goods. It worked really well as you got the chemical action the sugar needs to cause in the process, but the Stevia and Erythritol provided the "sweet" taste. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on the shelf at my local grocery stores. I have to be careful with Erythritol, though, as I get a sort of metabolic blow-back thing from it. A short time after eating something with Ery in it and I can taste it very strongly on my breath as my body is getting rid of it! Still better than the after-effects of the sugar alcohols, tho!
I tend to substitute fruit and berries (especially raisins/currants) a lot for the "sweet" in baked goods that don't need the sugar for the chemical process. I will sometimes substitute honey, but in lesser quantities. I've also fiddled with making some blends myself - Stevia is good and sweet, but I still find that food made with it tastes of Stevia. Xylitol I can detect immediately, and find it has an after-taste. My daughter can ID it in like three bites, and says it's bitter. So... I spend a lot of time in the kitchen fiddling around trying to do things that work a bit better for us.
