Avalanche Coconut Sugar product reviews

So in the last few weeks I have been busy scrolling through the review pages on KIWIreviews trying to look for new products to try that are sugar alternatives, dairy free, egg free, and citrus free to try with my little Miss 2 who due to a crazy allergic reaction to the above ended up in hospital, and it was suggested to us that we trial going free of these foods to see if it would help with our issues. I stumbled across the Avalanche Pure Coconut Sugar during my search and remembered reading all of these other amazing reviews when I was at the supermarket and happened to see it on the shelf, I had been using stevia as a sugar replacement in baking, but decided to grab some of the coconut sugar as well as I thought it may work as a better replacement in baking when brown sugar is called for rather than white, due to it's golden colour and caramel flavour.

The first thing I did upon opening the canister was dip my finger into the sugar and taste it, I was very skeptical as to how this would go as I really wasn't a fan of the taste on it's own, but none the less I decided to give it a go in my baking I had planned to use it in - blueberry muffins. The sugar worked really well in the muffins with me replacing the normal sugar with it, once cooked it had dissolved fully and left more of a caramel taste and colour which I liked, I had sprinkled the tops with a small amount of the sugar before baking to and this left a nice sort of crisp caramel topping to the muffins, best of all Miss 2 who tells me blueberry muffins are not her favourite really enjoyed them. Since making the blueberry muffins I have also made caramel slice with this and coconut condensed milk and it turned out fantastic.

What else I really loved about this product was that it is made in New Zealand and is 100% natural coconut sugar, low GI and micronutrient rich, it also comes in a great little container which has 2 great turn dials one which is great for sprinkling and the other for pouring. Definitely will consider buying this again as a sugar replacement, it's definitely a heap cheaper than the stevia I had been getting.

I was doing a bake off at work recently. I have one work mate who always misses out at these things. She is gluten free and needs to avoid sugar as well. So I always feel terrible when she comes into the kitchen to smell all the goodies, but can't eat anything. When I learnt about coconut sugar, it was through KIWIreviews.

So I bought a container of it and added it to a cookie dough I was making. It was not really as sweet as I expected. It had a good "raw sugar" colour and the taste was quite nice. The cookies came out great. They were a little sweet and salty from the peanut butter in them. I liked the peanut/coconut flavour to them. When I took them to work, she just about cried. She was thrilled and she said they were delicious. The others at work seemed to think so too, as they all disappeared super quick.

The only thing I felt with this product was, that the container is quite small. It is probably fine if you are just replacing your sugar for coffees and teas, but in baking you use quite a bit more. Especially if the recipe calls for a cup of sugar. However, I have already bought a new container. It's a great product to have available in the cupboard for days when you plan a morning tea goodie.

I've been on a real health kick this year so I was super excited to be given some coconut sugar to review. The first thing that I did when I got it was to have a wee taste off the spoon - it wasn't particularly sweet and it had a deep caramel/coffee flavour.

I figured the best way to try this product was to use it how I would normally use sugar and see how it compared. The one thing about my diet that I refuse to change is my two cups of tea a day so I immediately wanted to try the coconut sugar to replace the raw sugar that I normally use. I found that the coconut sugar wasn't as sweet and it did change the taste a little bit but not in an unpleasant way so I was quite happy about that. I also convinced my 6 year old son to try some on his porridge instead of brown sugar - he didn't completely freak out at the idea and ate it all up so I'm putting that down as a win.

We also used it to replace the white sugar in a pear crumble and I couldn't even tell the difference - definitely a win and I feel better about indulging my sweet tooth every once in a while knowing that I'm making a healthier choice for my family.

The only downside would be that the container is so small. It's ok for using small amounts here and there but if you wanted to do any serious baking with it, it wouldn't last very long.

I must confess to never having heard of coconut sugar before but given that coconut in many forms is all the rage at the moment in cooking I was very keen to give this try. I seem to go through a lot of white sugar with my baking so have been trying for a while to use substitutes such as apple puree. Given the small size of the coconut sugar container (200gms) I figured I would be using this fairly sparingly. The container doesn't specify where this coconut sugar comes from or if it is a sustainable product but I did like that it is low GI and micronutrient rich.

Obviously the first taste test is always to taste straight from the spoon. This is a very hard grainy brown sugar. its a bit chewy and tastes almost like burnt caramel but nice. It is a very complex taste with a depth that indicates not much would be needed. Because of the texture I decided a ratio of about 1/8 to 1/4 c for every cup of white sugar would work well and this can only be used in cooking that has a flavour profile that is enhanced by a taste like golden syrup/molasses.

With that in mind I decided to use these in my gluten free Anzac biscuits. I have struggled to make this recipe as the biscuits don't bind together well and usually end up a spread out mess. I substituted the cup of white sugar for a 1/4 cup of the coconut sugar and followed the recipe. Usually when I go to roll the balls there is a lot of melted butter collecting in my bowl but not this time. The mixture already seemed firmer and my biscuits more solid. Whilst they cooked in the oven I observed that instead of "melting" they were holding their shape. As soon as they looked ready I took them out rather pleased with myself. I loved the taste of these as they tasted a lot more dense and although crispy when I took them out of the oven they softened up. So a 10/10 for the Anzac biscuits!

I next used this on my porridge. Delicious!! And because this is more nutritious than brown sugar I felt less guilty eating it! I used this in place of honey in a cupcake recipe and liked the complexity it added. I also used it in a banana bread and thought it worked really well. I think overall this is a really interesting sugar and I will definitely continue to use it. The challenge is definitely in getting the ratios right when using it but calorie for calorie wise this is a great way to reduce the amount of sugar that you use in baking and it definitely enhances the flavour and changes the texture. I will try to find recipes that specifically use this coconut sugar, and wondered if it might help Avalanche to promote this product if they could fit a recipe on the back or give some tips for its use.

I can definitely recommend trying this product.

I have been advised to try and avoid sugar as much as possible and I must admit that I find if I eat too much sugar then I do feel like I could be sick so this is something I would rather avoid. I have tried it in my tea and on breakfast as I normally find that I'm eating breakfast at about 7 and by 9 I'm starving but I'm really pleased that with the coconut sugar I'm lasting till about 10:30 before I'm starving so this alone would make me buy it again and again. I have tried some on my ice cream and found it tasted really yummy.

I have looked up some recipes that use coconut sugar to try in baking but most need at least one cup of sugar and I'm running a bit low but since I'm definitely going to be buying some I know I will be trying the recipes soon. Only criticism that I have is the size of the tin, when used in almost every single thing in place of sugar it doesn't last long enough, it would be good if a bigger size option was available.

I would recommend this to people who are trying to replace sugar with something natural and healthier than sweeteners and artificial products.

Having loved the last lot of sugars that KIWIreviews received I was very keen to give this coconut sugar a try.

Opening this up, it had a smell that made me a bit unsure about trying it out, but it didn't take long to get used to, especially when I tried it straight from the container. It had a nice caramel hint to the sugar and it was so nice that it was hard to put the container down to save some for using in other items. I had some coconut sugar in my cup of tea, but for tea I will stick with my usual sugar. I tried it in coffee and it added a nice subtle flavour to the cup.

I decided to sprinkle this on my ice-cream and man oh man did it go really well with the hokey pokey ice-cream, as in, I would totally do that again with the ice-cream. My next choice was to make some bread pudding, as we needed to use up some bread. I needed one cup worth of sugar and decided to use 2/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup of the coconut sugar. I cooked it for only 25 minutes (instead of the full 45 minutes) as I had seen comments about it burning if cooked for the suggested length of time. Eating it, ohmigosh it was nice, out of the ten people that ate it only one didn't like it, I'll be making it again for sure.

I'll be getting this again, if not for just eating it straight then for the bread pudding.

I was lucky enough to be given some of this coconut sugar to review... and it was something really new to me as I actually hadn't heard of coconut sugar before. The first thing I did was taste-test the sugar - yummy! It has a strange fine texture and a very caramel taste to it. I seriously could eat the whole container straight ... but of course I didn't!

I did a little bit of research on coconut sugar first and discovered that it has as many calories as sugar but they aren't such empty calories as normal sugar - it has a low GI and lots of goodness which I'll leave you to research if you want to.

Perhaps I should have done a bit more research on how to bake with the stuff - I only knew to substitute directly 1 to 1 ratio. My first attempt at baking with it was probably fairly ambitious as I did meringues. I was whipping up my very tried and true recipe that has never failed, and I first noticed that it didn't seem to be whipping so well. Luckily it eventually thickened up, so I went ahead and cooked as normal. 2/3rds of the way through the cooking stage, I touch tested one and found it still to be soft, but taste tested it and it already tasted burnt! I whipped them out of the oven quickly and noticed that they crisped up on the cooling rack but quickly softened up again with the moisture from the air before they had even cooled. They are pretty much inedible unfortunately.

I accept that it may have been an ambitious start, so next I tried a new recipe - a simple pastry rollup recipe with cinnamon, sugar and butter. I took out half the caster sugar and used coconut sugar instead. Remembering my meringues burnt, I set the timer for 5 minutes less (they were supposed to have 25 minutes), however I should have halved the time and checked on them sooner as they burned too. Obviously coconut sugar burns a LOT more quickly than normal sugar. Some are edible, but not many.

As I'd used a good amount of my sugar already, I decided not to bake any thing else with it. The containers aren't huge and I'm wondering if it's best kept for using raw such as putting in hot drinks etc. I tried some on my grapefruit and although the taste was drowned out by the grapefruit, it gave a nice sweetness and I felt like at least it's slightly healthier than normal sugar. And it was yum on my cereal so I think I'll leave it out of my baking from now on and continue to use it raw in smaller amounts. Overall I absolutely love the product and love the taste but I feel it has it's place in the pantry next to the teas and coffees, as I'm not keen to bake with it again.

I was blown away by this product when given it to review as I had not seen or heard of coconut sugar before - even though I am a fan of other coconut products. I was unsure as to how to use this at first as we do not use much sugar in our family and felt by putting it in baking at first I was not going to get a try indication of this sugar.

I decided the first place to try this however would be on my porridge (as it said it has a caramel flavour). I couldn't believe how quickly this dissolved (just like brown sugar). I was surprised though that although it had melted and looked like liquid it had a funny texture. It did have a caramel flavour, a bit like brown sugar, however lingered in the mouth a lot longer.

I then decided to use it in a crumble topping. The sugar dissolved pretty quickly when put on top of the fruit (even before it made it into the oven). Therefore when cooked in the oven it really crisped up. In future however when using it like this I would make sure that the fruit was warm first as it does not take long for the sugar to burn.

Overall I was impressed with this as a cane sugar alternative and would be happy to use it as I do cane sugar.