Got tagatose?

[UncaAndoo]

Interesting! I've been waiting at least a year for tagatose to hit the market. I read this article a while ago:
Wired 11.11: Hitting the Sweet Spot

[Mistizoom]

Originally Posted by UncaAndoo

Interesting! I've been waiting at least a year for tagatose to hit the market. I read this article a while ago:
Wired 11.11: Hitting the Sweet Spot

Interesting article!

[JMCM1]

Subbing

[Perdita]

Wow, that wired article is years and years old, I feel so bad for the guy who's been trying to bring it to market for so long. (I ordered 3 lbs.)

Any other experiments lately? Thread is quiet. Does it recrystallize like erythritol?

[Soobee]

No.

[alonewithyou]

I wonder if it makes chocolate bitter like splenda does? Anyone know?

[Soobee]

It works just like sugar with chocolate. I made Carolyn's All Day I Dream About Food Flourless Chocolate Torte. I used tagatose as one of my sweeteners. I layered it with my caramel sauce. Delicious. Lots of chocolate but no bitterness.

[alonewithyou]

Omg. Great! I want something sweet and chocolate-y!

[JMCM1]

Originally Posted by Soobee

It works just like sugar with chocolate. I made Carolyn's All Day I Dream About Food Flourless Chocolate Torte. I used tagatose as one of my sweeteners. I layered it with my caramel sauce. Delicious. Lots of chocolate but no bitterness.

I guess we all subscribe to the same blogs/sites. I have the "stuff" sitting out to make that chocolate torte. But no tagatose.

Tagatose is definitely on my list - thanks Soobee for the review!

[Redeemed]

I'm invited to a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony on Friday. I plan on bringing low carb scones with Buttoni's lemon curd recipe to share with my gracious hostess. I'll be using Tagatose for the recipes. I'll let you know how they turn out.

[Redeemed]

I made the George Stella scones that CarolynF posted. I used blueberries for the recipe. Although they tasted great, they were nothing like scones. Instead, they were like big, soft blueberry cookies. The lemon curd turned out great.

[Perdita]

My tagatose is on the way...from entirely the wrong coast, so I won't get it until Friday (even though I ordered it this PAST Friday). I'm pretty excited.

The coupon code on page 2 still works, which brought the price down under typical erythritol price for me per pound.

[kalatraza]

I made Peggy's (Buttoni) version of Ouizoid's corn muffins with a few tweaks, adding 1/2 c. of tagatose to make a sweet corn muffin. The day I made them I wasn't in love with the flavor but after a night in the fridge, voila, a keeper! Also the muffins rose nicely and browned beautifully. Followed Peggy's baking instructions but probably should have lowered the baking temp a bit -- muffins were too brown on the bottom.

I think that's probably going to be rule number one for converting baked recipes to tagatose. . . decrease baking temperature by at least 25 degrees and increase bake time to compensate?

[slbbw]

I have used tagatose a few times now, primarily in combination with other sweeteners. The one time I used it as a stand alone sweetener was in some "Pecan Pie Muffins".
The recipe included a Tbsp of Molasses. When they were done, I noticed a strong sort of burnt molasses back taste. I didn't like it. In fact, I only ate one. I assumed the molasses was too strong for the recipe.
However, I still notice that very faint molasses taste when I use tagatose in baked goods. Has anyone else noticed that? It's not awful, but it's enough for me to only use tagatose in combination.

[Soobee]

I didn't notice this, but I usually use tagatose in a mix of sweeteners. I'm glad for the warning.

[kalatraza]

I guess I'm lucky that it tastes like caramel and not burnt molasses to me but I can also taste what Sharon is describing in baked goods sweetened with 100% tagatose. Now that can be a good thing in some applications but not so much in others. Have not noticed this flavor using other methods, so my guess is it must happen when the tagatose is heated to a certain temperature for a certain length of time.

Like Soobee recommends, I'll probably stick to a sweetener combination moving forward unless I want that caramel taste.

[Perdita]

What's the feeling on the "real"/digestible carb count on this stuff? 4 carbs per 4 grams (what is that, about a teaspoon?) seems pretty high.

[Soobee]

I read that it was 3 on the glycemic index. That puts it at less than xylitol.

[Redeemed]

I just made Peggy's (Buttoni) almond butter cookies with tagatose. I forgot to add the gluc., but they turned out alright. I used her recipe for lemon curd for the cookies when they cooled. So far the scones are my only failure. I tried a teaspoon in homemade lemonaide, and there was no sweetness at all. I added another teaspoon, and still no sweetness. So, maybe it needed more. I stopped at two teaspoons because I didn't want to have that much in my lemonaide.

[Perdita]

I got mine last night, but UPS arrived quite late so I couldn't try any real experiments. Two observations though:

1) I added a few teaspoons to a glass of iced tea that had already been semi-sweetened with a combo of truvia and sucralose. The Tagatose pushed it over the top into REALLY tasting like good ol' southern sweet tea.

2) I then tried using it as the primary sweetener in this morning's hot tea, but I had to use a lot (as others have noted it's not terribly concentrated in its sweetness), and then I began to get the molasses back taste mentioned.

As others have mentioned, I think this will be good in conjunction with other sweeteners, maybe not as a primary sweetener itself in all recipes. (Although I'm going to try making chocolate chip cookies with it tonight--I'm a person who, when making the traditional toll house recipe, increased the brown sugar ratio considerably, so pretty excited about this.)

[TBipp]

Originally Posted by Perdita

As others have mentioned, I think this will be good in conjunction with other sweeteners, maybe not as a primary sweetener itself in all recipes. (Although I'm going to try making chocolate chip cookies with it tonight--I'm a person who, when making the traditional toll house recipe, increased the brown sugar ratio considerably, so pretty excited about this.)

Would love to hear about your chocolate chip cookies. I like chewy ones and I think they are impossible to achieve without brown sugar. I am also hoping someone tries this in brownies which I also like chewy and my favorite conventional recipes usually had some brown sugar in them.

[Perdita]

Unfortunately I may be having a digestive reaction to the tagatose I used in my tea this morning. Can't think of what else it might be. I'll report back when I have more data.

[Soobee]

TBipp, I didn't make brownies, but I did make Carolyn's (All Day I Dream About Food) flourless Chocolate Torte with tagatose as one of the sweeteners. It was just terrific.

[DiggingDogFarm]

I had a VERY bad experience with NuNaturals a couple years ago and haven't used their products since.

Too bad they seem to be the only purveyor of tagatose currently.

I may just go against my better judgement and order some anyway.


~Martin

[slbbw]

Originally Posted by DiggingDogFarm

I had a VERY bad experience with NuNaturals a couple years ago and haven't used their products since.

Too bad they seem to be the only purveyor of tagatose currently.

I may just go against my better judgement and order some anyway.


~Martin

I recognize your determination! I'm the same way.. haha I remember for a looooong time. Anyway, it may help to know that a few of us recently ordered with no problems, fast shipping, and even used a coupon code (FB1F) that gave us about $9 off the total. I think shipping was free too.

[DiggingDogFarm]

Funny thing is I was a very loyal customer who was, up until the event in question, very happy with their products.
When I had an issue I was extremely shocked at how unprofessionally they handled the situation.
I bought a couple boxes of stevia packets.
I was surprised to learn that the stevia powder had caked up and stuck to the inside of the packet.
In hindsight I should have just returned it to the store where I purchased it, but that would have required a special trip.
Keep in mind that I had a lot of experience in using alternative sweetener packets and the NuNaturals packets were in no way abused by me, in fact, several other brands of various packets that were kept in the same way as the NuNaturals were perfectly fine, so the problem developed elsewhere.

To make a L-O-N-G story short, NuNaturals drug the situation out over several months before finally making it right, it got unbelievably ridiculous with them saying that they lost the returned packets, this was after I waited for several weeks for call tags that never arrived and then they finally did and a bunch of other run-around, etc. etc. etc.
It was the most unprofessional response from a company that I have ever experienced.
So, I'm rather reluctant to use their products again.
If they don't care about a legitimate customer concern, why should I care to ever use their products again?

And so it goes......

~Martin

[TBipp]

Originally Posted by Soobee

TBipp, I didn't make brownies, but I did make Carolyn's (All Day I Dream About Food) flourless Chocolate Torte with tagatose as one of the sweeteners. It was just terrific.

Thank you SooBee. I am so happy to hear of a sweetener that works well with chocolate. Erythritol causes an intense burning sensation on my tongue and it lasts a few minutes so I try not to use it. Unfortunately for me, it is a popular sweetener for chocolate treats.

[CindyCRNA]

Originally Posted by dianafoot

Don't mean to be gross, but let's just say I'm ready to get my colonoscopy now after trying tagatose in my coffee yesterday. Need to take tiny steps with the stuff, I guess...

This is the reason I don't try it. I stay away from poly-d and malitol also. I can't do the gassy, crampy stuff.

[kalatraza]

Is anybody out there a food chemist or hobbyist or just good at big science words? I have an older copy of a textbook about alternative sweeteners and it has a chapter on tagatose. . . . it talks about some interesting stuff about how tagatose works with chocolate in particular, its maillard reaction properties, etc., but I'm no scientist and don't have the patience to wade through this thing. (I'd have to look up like every other word and wouldn't trust my interpretation enough to share.)

Anyway, if anyone is more sciency than me, I'd be happy to scan this chapter and fax or email it to you. The book is "Sweeteners and Sugar Alternatives in Food Technology," published in 2006. There's a new edition out--so if someone has access to THAT, well, that'd be even better.

This is a total longshot, but I figured I'd post and see if anyone was interested in taking a look. Might save us all a lot of heavy cream and almond flour in the long run.

[drjlocarb]

Question;

Is this stuff fructose in disguise? Is it metabolized in the liver like HFCS?