Stevia provides an aromatic sweetness that doesn't cause tooth decay or make you fat. If you have some space in the garden or balcony, you can use the natural sweetener in the leaves directly by adding the fresh or dried green to drinks and food.

Make your own dried stevia

By drying the very sweet-tasting leaves of the stevia plant, you can preserve the substitute sugar for a long time. These are harvested as needed during the entire growth phase. In late summer, before the sweet herb moves to winter storage, you can cut back the plant vigorously and use the leaves to make your supply of sweetener for the winter.

Method:

  • Carefully remove leaves from stems.
  • Cut up very large leaves; so they dry faster.
  • Spread the stevia out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
  • Make sure the leaves are not stacked on top of each other so they dry evenly.
  • Dry in the oven at 40 to 50 degrees (lowest temperature level) until the leaves can be broken with a crack.
  • Do not close the oven door completely so that the moisture can escape.

Alternatively, you can dry the stevia leaves in a dehydrator on the lowest setting.

If the stevia has grown well and has formed longer branches, you can gather them into bunches and hang them upside down in a dry, warm room. After about a week, when the leaves are completely dry, you can carefully pluck them from the branches and pick out all hard parts of the plant. The further processing is the same as with the sweet cabbage dried in the oven.

Production of stevia powder

Once the stevia has dried, first gently crumble the leaves by hand. Then crush the sweet cabbage in a mortar to a fine powder and pour the sweetener into a tightly fitting screw-top jar.

tips and tricks

Since naturally obtained stevia powder sweetens very intensely, you should be extremely careful with the dosage. A teaspoon of the substitute sugar you make yourself corresponds roughly to the sweetening power of 50 grams of conventional household sugar. It is therefore better to use a little less powder at first and add more seasoning if necessary.

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The garden journal freshness ABC

How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?

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