The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Honey_Bear

I hope your profiteroles and cake were worth the effort of making them so you could feel really self-indulgent when you ate them Cookie.  As a lifelong lover of (particularly) profiteroles I often wonder why we put up with the soggy cardboard commerically available ones when homemade are just fabulous.  *profiterole envy*  I'm also very aware now that I don't get the urge to eat sugar in the mornings at all, whereas my favourite breakfast used to be chocolate cake!

Whatever cocktails you have I hope you thoroughly enjoy them.

cookie02

I'm going to declare today as my first sugar-free day of the week!  I think it's fairly safe to say that now.  I had some lentils earlier and also had a couple of dates. 

Honey_Bear, the profiteroles and cake were lovely, thank you.  They were definitely worth the sugar but the cake didn't have that much processed sugar as I used a couple of tablespoons of maple and that seemed to work.  You are right about profiteroles.  I will eat the shop-bought ones but homemade is so much better (and they're not difficult!).  How did your weekend go?  Sugar-wise, I hope you managed to keep within your goals.  

I'm hoping to be sugar-free until Friday night.  I can already tell that this will be a long week but I'm going to do my best.  I've found that once I got through one day, it makes me more eager to keep going (more of that, 'don't break the streak' mentality...) so I hope that will keep me going.  

Good luck with your goals for the week 🤞and hope everyone is well!. 

cookie02

Today will be interesting as I'm already in the mood for sugar and the mornings are normally the part of the day where this isn't as much of an issue.  I can't figure out why this is happening.  I'm not especially stressed or overwhelmed today, nor am I so busy that I haven't managed to have my tea / water etc.  This craving seems to be a bit random but it's not going away.  My goal is to be sugar-free today so I will be having lunch a bit earlier than usual and I hope that will keep me on the straight and narrow!  

Good luck everyone

Honey_Bear

How incredibly frustrating for you Cookie; the mornings are normally safe for me as well so I sympathise with your situation.  Could it be that after the profiteroles and cake your body is now saying, "Right.  Apparently sugar's allowed after all, so Gimme More More More!'?  That's when I use the date bars, and if necessary two, so that I can stick to the No Added Sugar rule without having to live with cravings.  Lunch should help with them.  Good luck with it.

I ate a chocolate last night, late, I was tired after a very hectic day but that wasn't why really, I think I'd have been able to resist quite easily if it were just that.  Belovéd is looking for a new supplier of special chocolates and dipped into H0te1 Ch0c01ate and bought supplies, so we had to try them.  Naturally.  Obviously.  Great, but apparently vastly more expensive than our Chocaccino ones so, while he likes them, he's not satisfied they're the right ones for us.  I foresee several attempts at finding a new supplier, and therefore lots of tastings and quality control.  This is what can be accurately described as a Truly First World Problem.  I'm leaving it up to him because if it were my responsibility I'd be out scouring the county (and the two next door) for alternatives every day.  Other than that, the weekend was not an over-indulgent one but it was indulgent.  I'm fine with that, because it was all chocolate and none of the indulgence was wasted on tedious overly-sweet rubbish which was one of my old bad habits. 

ETA:  I had to bake some Twinks Hobnobs for tomorrow, and had one and half for quality control purposes.  *sigh*  Cooking for other people this week, and that means I need to taste pretty much everything.  No choice,  but I will enjoy all of the tastings and know that I'm sending out food that is about as good as it get on the budget I've been given. 

Honey_Bear

Confession time again.  I baked a tray of brownies last week (or the week before, can't remember which) but forgot them in the oven.  I assumed they were overbaked but froze them anyway.  I didn't want to cut into them because they were for this Friday, so I defrosted them today to see if they were edible, and allow myself some time tomorrow to bake another batch if not.  I had to cut into them to see how dry they were in the middle (fine, surprisingly) and then cut a short edge off side to side to see if that was edible or over-baked. Fine, very surprisingly.  Now, I'm a chocoholic, there was a very fudgey mid-point brownie on the kitchen counter, and a very fudgey edgebit of brownie.  If I'd left them for someone else to eat they'd have been stale by Friday, so I ....  (They were absolutely delicious.)

There's plenty left for Friday, when I'm feeding the rest of it to 16 people and there may very well be leftovers after I've sent those 16 pieces out.  I may, just may, be able to force myself to wait until Saturday to eat any more.  There's always hope, isn't there?

The recipe is definitely wrong though.  I've checked our oven and it heats to exactly the stipulated temperature.  I've made these brownies three times and they're virtually raw when the recipe says they should be done, so I'm going to have to watch the next batch like a hawk and see exactly how long they take to bake.  It's a wonderful recipe but just wrong on the baking time, which says 30 minutes and I think it's more like 45, which is why I forgot them. 

cookie02

Honey_Bear, those brownies sound wonderful and I'm sure that you're guests will be very happy to know that they've been through the proper quality control tests .  

Honey_Bear said:

How incredibly frustrating for you Cookie; the mornings are normally safe for me as well so I sympathise with your situation.  Could it be that after the profiteroles and cake your body is now saying, "Right.  Apparently sugar's allowed after all, so Gimme More More More!'?  That's when I use the date bars, and if necessary two, so that I can stick to the No Added Sugar rule without having to live with cravings.  Lunch should help with them.  Good luck with it.

I ate a chocolate last night, late, I was tired after a very hectic day but that wasn't why really, I think I'd have been able to resist quite easily if it were just that.  Belovéd is looking for a new supplier of special chocolates and dipped into H0te1 Ch0c01ate and bought supplies, so we had to try them.  Naturally.  Obviously.  Great, but apparently vastly more expensive than our Chocaccino ones so, while he likes them, he's not satisfied they're the right ones for us.  I foresee several attempts at finding a new supplier, and therefore lots of tastings and quality control.  This is what can be accurately described as a Truly First World Problem.  I'm leaving it up to him because if it were my responsibility I'd be out scouring the county (and the two next door) for alternatives every day.  Other than that, the weekend was not an over-indulgent one but it was indulgent.  I'm fine with that, because it was all chocolate and none of the indulgence was wasted on tedious overly-sweet rubbish which was one of my old bad habits. 

ETA:  I had to bake some Twinks Hobnobs for tomorrow, and had one and half for quality control purposes.  *sigh*  Cooking for other people this week, and that means I need to taste pretty much everything.  No choice,  but I will enjoy all of the tastings and know that I'm sending out food that is about as good as it get on the budget I've been given. 

I feel like I might be adding to the chocolatey tendencies here but you and your OH might want to check out Ch0c0c0, if you haven't already.  They are pricey but they are handmade/small batch chocolates so they'll probably be closer to what you are used to with your old chocolate cafe.  I was looking for a gift for a family event and noticed that they have a good offer on their pre-paid gift subscriptions at the moment.  I hope your cooking goes well, Honey_Bear, I'm sure the recipients count themselves lucky 😎.  

In other news, I have made it this far sugar-free!  I think the weather has helped me a bit as I find I'm less hungry when it's hot so, while I've had sugar cravings for most of the week, I haven't acted on them so far.  Tomorrow evening, we're going out locally and I know I'll have dessert then but I'm hoping I'll be able to resist until then.  I'm still not sure why I've been craving sugar so early in the day.  The only thing I can think of is that I've been waking up much earlier (4.30/5am!) so maybe I'm getting cravings earlier because of that.  I guess I should try tracking that to see if that's the cause.  If so, I'm not sure what I'll do though as our curtains let the light through but I love the light too much to get blackout blinds.  

cookie02

The weekend is here and all bets are off!  I've been in a sugary mood all week but I managed to restrain myself until last night when I had a very light coffee cake.  Today, we'll be heading out after breakfast to meet some friends for a walk and lunch.  Interestingly, I'm not in a sugary mood at all (yet) but I guess it's still early in the day and I'm sure that will change.  

Enjoy the sun! 🌞 

Honey_Bear

I am so impressed with you resisting until Friday evening, despite the fact that you've been craving it all week.  *respect*  Hugely well done Cookie, and I hope you thoroughly enjoy your weekend, whether it's indulgent or restrained.  ... mmmmm coffee cake ....

Sadly I wasn't restrained this week, but then again, I kind of was.  I've been doing some catering and it's been extremely hard work because I am not a caterer and it was complicated.  However, it all went well and I didn't over-indulge at all, but there were offcuts of that famously over-cooked brownie in the fridge all week and I had some every day.  It went out yesterday and a very few pieces were returned with rapturous praise (not my recipe, but it is absolutely gorgeous) with at least one of the vegans, and I rather suspect both of them, finding them irresistible - they're full of butter and eggs.  I've got another day to do and I've decided it's okay to repeat myself, so I'm going to bake another batch tomorrow because they're relatively quick, I've got all of the ingredients and at least five people weren't there on Friday so will hear about them and feel left out if I don't.  Besides which, nothing else would be as popular!  (I even bought a box of vegan fruit cake slices at great expense so they'd have a dessert-type thing, but that came back unopened.)

Belovéd and I discussed the chocolatier you recommended and we're going to give it a try.  Thank you for that, Cookie - much appreciated.

cookie02

Honey_Bear said:

I am so impressed with you resisting until Friday evening, despite the fact that you've been craving it all week.  *respect*  Hugely well done Cookie, and I hope you thoroughly enjoy your weekend, whether it's indulgent or restrained.  

I was shocked to make it to Friday, Honey_Bear.  Posting here really helps - thanks for all your support .  

Congratulations on your catering success!  The brownies sounded amazing so I'm not surprised that they were a hit with everyone.  I hope you and your OH enjoy the chocolates and that they are closer to what you're missing.  I know the bar is very high so fingers crossed 🤞.  While browsing for a family event gift, I ended up getting a gift subscription for my dad.  He's enjoyed the advent calendar before so I think he'll enjoy it.  

This week, I'm aiming to be sugar-free today until Friday evening.  So far, everything has been fine.  I haven't had any sugar cravings this morning so that's a good start.  

Good luck with your goals for the week! 😎

Honey_Bear

And ditto, good luck with your goals this week Cookie.  Posting really does work because it keeps me accountable and I figure that applies to everyone else, so I'm glad to hear it works for you.

I've fallen at the first hurdle already I'm afraid.  Both Belovéd and I are exhausted but that's to be expected.  I've just sent out the last meal for this catering job, and sat down to give myself a break.  Lunch was leftovers and then I just needed sugar and I know why.  We started this morning by running on empty, he's got the adrenaline of getting everyone on their marks over and over again today for the final time and I don't.  I just needed the energy boost after I'd met my final deadline so I had four of the biscuits I'd baked specially for them yesterday.  I'd call it quality control but it's far too late for that - they left the building at 11.30 this morning and although I could have phoned and said, 'Oh whoops, I put 225g of salt in instead of sugar so don't eat them' but given that it would be hard to find 225g of salt that was always unlikely to happen!  (They were fab, btw.)

There may be some leftover brownies returned at the end of the day and I strongly suspect they won't all be frozen so that I an avoid temptation either but I'll do my best to resist.  Other than them I'm intending this week will be sugar-free but I'm not promising anything at the moment. 

Being over-tired is really, really hard on self-discipline.