Today we want to show you how to prepare a healthy sugar-free glaze with only two ingredients: natural sweetener erythritol and almond milk. It's practically calorie-free, meaning you can use it to garnish your mouth-watering sweet creations without using any added sugars.
Classic icing, also known as glacé icing, is a glossy and smooth glaze made by whisking powdered white sugar with water. Although it tastes delicious, it's not so good for your health. Refined white sugar quickly raises blood sugar levels, affecting insulin balance and eventually leading to weight gain.
Erythritol, instead, is a sugar alcohol that occurs naturally in fruit but has zero sugars and zero calories, making it the perfect sugar alternative without side effects. Your taste buds perceive it almost as sweet as sugar. Still, it doesn't affect your blood glucose and insulin levels once it's absorbed into the bloodstream.
Erythritol is a safe sweetener for people with diabetes, those following a ketogenic diet, or looking for a healthier sugar option. That's why we decided to use it to prepare this sugar-free icing. Our recipe is vegan and gluten-free, and, as it has no carbs, it works great as a keto glaze icing.
All you have to do is blitz erythritol in a food processor until it turns into a fine powder, similar to icing sugar. Then, sift it in a bowl and beat it with almond until dissolved. Our tried and tested ingredients ratio yields a pourable glaze, perfect for drizzling cakes and pastries. If you want a thicker icing, we'll give you the option to adjust the ingredients to make a more spreadable glaze, perfect for decorating cookies or cakes.
The default ingredients yield 350g (12 oz) of sugar-free glaze, enough to ice one cake or eight pastries.
How to make a glaze without powdered sugar?
If you don't have icing sugar, you can blitz granulated sugar in a food processor until it's powdered. You can do the same with brown sugar or coconut sugar, but your glaze will take on a brownish tone.
If you want to make a sugar-free glaze without powdered sugar, you can use one of the following keto-approved sweeteners:
Monk fruit sweetener
Erythritol
Powdered Stevia
How to make a smooth erythritol icing glaze?
As erythritol is sold as a granulated sweetener, you have to first turn it into a fine powder. Just add it to a food processor, pulse it for a few minutes, and you'll have perfectly powdered erythritol. Then, sift it in a bowl and pour in the liquid a bit at a time while whisking to avoid lumps in the glaze.
Can I use stevia to make low-carb glaze?
You can use granulated stevia to make a low-carb glaze, but only if it's already mixed with erythritol as a bulking agent (or other bulking agents).
The reason is that stevia is over 200 times sweeter than sugar, but to make a glaze, we need to use a large volume of sweetener. So pure stevia wouldn't be suitable, as you would require too much and it would be unbearably sweet. But usually, stevia brands are already mixed with a bulking agent, so you should be ok.
Make sure you blitz the granules into a fine powder before mixing it with water.
Can I use xylitol to make sugar-free icing glaze?
Being as sweet as sugar, you can use xylitol in ratio 1:1 instead of icing sugar to make a sugar-free glaze. Xylitol is usually sold as granules, so you'll have to blitz them into a fine powder before mixing it with water or milk.
Xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol safe for diabetics and those on a ketogenic diet. It's sugar-free and has 40% fewer calories than sugar; still, it contains 4 grams of carbohydrates per teaspoon. When consumed in small amounts, it doesn't affect blood glucose and insulin levels.
However, eating more than 40g (1.4 oz) a day of xylitol can cause digestive issues [1]. Considering that making a glaze requires a fair amount of sweetener, you might end up having about 30g (1 oz) of sweetener per serving. Therefore, we recommend using erythritol or stevia if you can, just to be on the safe side.
Can I use allulose to make keto icing?
Like erythritol, allulose has 70% the sweetness of sugar, so you can use it in ratio 1:1.3 to replace sugar in keto icing.
However, if we have to choose between erythritol and allulose, we prefer the first. Erythritol is cheaper and has a well-established research body behind it to support its long-term use.
Is Splenda good for making glaze?
You can swap sugar with Splenda in ratio 1:1 to make a sugar-free glaze only if you're using the granulated Splenda. This blend of sucralose and maltodextrin is as sweet as sugar and can be used instead of sugar in recipes.
Make sure to blitz it into a fine powder before mixing it with water or milk to get a smooth glaze.
Splenda is the brand name for the artificial sweetener sucralose, and it's over 400 times sweeter than sugar. Although the FDA considers sucralose to be safe, the long-term health effects are unclear[2]; many studies have shown some potential side effects.
Therefore, we recommend opting for safer, natural sweeteners like erythritol or stevia instead of Splenda.
Where can I use this glaze?
Glacé icing is perfect for garnishing cakes, doughnuts, muffins, cupcakes, and cookies. Our sugar-free glaze is smooth and pourable, meaning you can easily drizzle it onto pastries, cake loaves, and cake rolls.
We also give the option to make it thicker by adjusting the ingredients. This way, you can use this sugar-free icing to decorate cookies and glaze doughnuts.
Is this keto glaze recipe healthy?
Yes, this icing recipe is super healthy. We used only zero-sugar erythritol and unsweetened almond milk, meaning each serving is practically calorie-free. The same glaze made with icing sugar instead of erythritol would have over 100 calories.
Erythritol is a natural sweetener with zero sugars and calories, safe for people with diabetes or on a ketogenic diet Almond milk is a plant-based alternative to cow milk, low in fats, sugars, and calories. So, you can use this glaze to garnish your sweet bakes without worries.
Can I make icing without dairy?
Yes, you can swap cow milk with plant-based alternatives. We recommend using plain, unsweetened options like almond, soy, or oat milk. You can also try making the glaze with coconut milk which will add a lovely tropical flavour to your sweet bakes.
Which flavourings can I add to this glaze?
Depending on which baked product you're going to use this glaze with, you can flavour it with a few drops of:
Lemon essence
Almond essence
Orange extract
Vanilla extract
Can you store glaze?
As soon as you prepare the glaze, we recommend either using it right away or immediately store it in the fridge.
This is because the icing will start to set and dry out within 15 to 30 minutes. If you want to make it ahead of time, mix the ingredients and then place the glaze in an airtight container or cover it with cling film. Then, keep it in the fridge for up to a week.
Ingredients
| Erythritol | 250 g |
| Almond Milk | 100 mL |
Step 1
Add the erythritol to a food processor and blitz it until it's powdered.
It should look like icing sugar.
Step 2
Next, sift the powdered erythritol into a bowl and pour in the almond milk.
The default 1:2.5 milk to erythritol ratio yields a pourable glaze.
If you prefer a thicker consistency for a more spreadable icing, use them in the ratio 1:4, meaning 60ml (2 fl oz) of milk and 240g (8.5 oz) of erythritol.
Step 3
Finally, whisk well ingredients until you have a smooth glaze.
Use this sugar-free icing to decorate your sweet creations, like doughnuts, cookies, pastries, and cakes.
Tips
You can replace almond milk with other plant-based alternatives like coconut, soy or oat milk.