Sugar Free Sunday--Bean Pie

Welcome to this week's edition of Sugar Free Sunday!

My son has been requesting another navy bean pie, and since he's been eating sugar-free right along with me, he asked me to try a sugar free version.

After actually reading the Splenda bag last week and discovering that I needed to add 1/2 cup of powdered milk and 1/2 t baking powder for every 1 cup of Splenda that I substitute for sugar when making baked goods, I was ready to tackle another sugar-free challenge.

Ingredients:

• 1 c cooked navy beans (I used canned)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c evaporated milk
• 1/2 stick (1/4 c) butter
• 1 T flour
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1 c sugar Splenda
• 1/2 c powdered milk (added due to the Splenda substitution)
• 1/4 t baking powder (I wasn't sure if I would need this addition for a pie, so I used a little less than the 1/2 t recommended)

Put everything into a blender and process until well blended.

Pour into a single crust pie shell. (I used a refrigerated pie crust that you unroll, but you could use a frozen (thawed) crust, or one made from scratch.) The original recipe calls for baking at 350 for 50-60 minutes; I baked this one about 35-40 minutes and it was done.


I don't know how, but I messed this up a bit, I totally forgot to add the butter. So I actually made a pie that was both sugar-free and fat-free. So, instead of my pie looking like this:


(my first bean pie--the one with sugar and butter in it)

...it came out looking like this.

Just a bit disappointing? Another thing that's mentioned on the back of the Splenda package is that baked goods made with Splenda don't brown the same way as those made with sugar. You can lightly spray the top with cooking spray if you want the browning. I have a feeling that even having butter in the batter might have helped the looks of this!

As far as taste goes, it was okay--I think the butter would have really helped it--and the texture was just a bit dry. I will make this again, this time with the butter, and possibly lightly spraying the top, as well.

What sugar-free goodies have you made this week?

Until next time...