Comforting Blackberry Coffee Cake With #MonkFruitInTheRaw #MC #Sponsored

***Disclosure: I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Monk Fruit In The Raw. I received product samples to facilitate my post as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.***

As many of you may be aware, September is Childhood Obesity Month. This is a growing epidemic here in the United States, and kids' waistlines are getting larger and larger. Some of this is due to lack of physical activity in this digital age, and some has to do with diet. 

So many foods today are loaded with sugar, which can definitely affect body weight. And a lot of the time, sugars are even disguised on labels, going by some freaky sounding names that most people can't even pronounce, like Isomaltotriose and Oligosaccharride, just to name a couple. (There are actually over 200 different names that sugar goes by on food labels.) 

Aside from processed, pre-packaged foods, there's also a ton of sugar involved in making homemade baked goods. One way we cut the sugar without sacrificing taste is substituting regular sugar with Monk Fruit In The Raw. This wholesome sweetener, which is derived from the Monk Fruit, looks like sugar, bakes like sugar, but contains ZERO calories. That's right. All the flavor of sugar without the guilt or nasty, chemical ingredients. 

While I love to cook, my husband is the baker in the house. He loves anything sweet or dessert-like, so any time he has a reason to break out the baking gear, he takes full advantage of it. 

Dan decided to make some delicious Blackberry Coffee Cake, using Monk Fruit In The Raw in place of the sugar in the recipe. He definitely noticed that Monk Fruit In The Raw blended and mixed just like regular sugar does. This was a nice change, considering a lot of the sugar alternatives we've tried have been...well....a bit funky to work with. 

But the thing he loves the most about this product is the fact that it converts exactly the same as regular sugar. So if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, you would substitute 1 cup of Monk Fruit In The Raw. Easy, peasy, right? 

The house smelled absolutely amazing while our Blackberry Coffee Cake baked away in the oven. Our mouths were literally watering, so we couldn't wait to serve up a few slices. Dan and I had ours with a nice cup of coffee, and the kids got a cold glass of milk with their cake. 

The recipe was definitely a huge hit with my whole family. My teenager, who happens to have very sensitive taste buds, couldn't even tell that this cake didn't have traditional white sugar in it. We were all surprised and delighted to find that Monk Fruit In The Raw tastes just like sugar would in our recipe. There was nothing "off" or artificial tasting, and the sweetness was just right. We will definitely continue to use this product for our cooking and baking needs. It tastes great, behaves just like sugar, and it has ZERO calories! It just doesn't get any better than that, folks! 

Would you like to try my Blackberry Coffee Cake for yourselves? Here's the recipe :

Have you ever used Monk Fruit In The Raw, or other In The Raw products for cooking and baking? I'd love to hear your experiences!