Stevia

What on earth is that stuff??! I understand it's not sugar, but what is it exactly? A brief google search wasn't helpful.

I still gave it a try. I dished out the $12 for a tiny bottle, scornful at the rip-off. Three months later though, I use it about every other day (I don't know what it is so I don't trust it fully to consume it daily), one drop at a time, using with great care the eye-drop (I made the mistake the first time to use four drops in my green tea--it was undrinkable). At this rate, it looks like the bottle is going to last until 2020. (Maybe in the meantime the internet will have figured out what it is and whether it is safe for me to consume it?). I needed something else.

This morning the rock-hard bread was making fun of me, of my incapacity to eat the whole loaf before hardening, and I pulled out Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook at page 199 for the easiest bread-pudding recipe on earth (I take out an egg from her ingredients). I decided to replace the sugar with stevia, adding two drops, then risking a third. I followed the variations suggested below the recipe, namely: a few dark chocolate chips, some chopped frozen banana, a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. It came out very lightly sweetened, so I may start using the stevia a bit more into my baking...

The bread-pudding recipe is on page 199 of the Moosewood Cookbook. But here's what I baked:
-placed the hard bread cut into bite sizes in the ceramic baking pot
-in a bowl, quickly whipped together: 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt, 3 drops of stevia.
-found the chocolate chips from their hiding place, dug out the frozen bananas from the freezer. Added a handful of chocolate chips to the bread, chopped one banana thinly and filled the holes between the bread pieces.
-covered the whole thing with the custard.
-Sprinkled cinnamon and nutmeg on top.
-Oven: 350F, 35 minutes.