Be sweet without the sugar

Mixing a cake with less sugar

Grandma Abson lived though the hard grind of life in service in 1900s. Then she lived through the depression of the 1930s, when she became a widow with two teenagers, followed by rationing in World War 2. So she learnt to be very resourceful in times of shortage. 

Part of her baking philosophy was about turning out something tasty from limited resources. The weekly ration of sugar for an adult from 1940 was 8oz, the equivalent of 225 grams. This sounds quite a lot if, like me, you don’t have a sweet tooth. Sugar was rationed till 1953, so it’s not hard to see why many of Grandma’s recipes use less sugar. In 1953 when the coronation took place, sugar and butter rations were doubled for a short while so people could enjoy a Coronation bake. All food rationing ended in July 1954.

However, Grandma cut down the amount of sugar in her cake, pudding and biscuit recipes and used between one third and one half of the quantity of sugar you might see in modern recipes. She would flavour her baking with cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice and later used honey or golden syrup as an alternative.  

Ginger Cake

I'm following her example and don't overload my baking with sugar and enhance the flavour with spices and natural products. Stay healthy by reducing the sugar. Enjoy your baking and let me know what you’ve baked this week.