With the many varieties of apples available at farmstands, we have entered one of the best baking seasons of the year.

As I’ve written before, although we try to focus on whole grains, lean proteins, fruit and vegetables, and healthy fats in our diet, our cravings for sugar remain a stumbling block.  I’m not tempted by fried buffalo wings, thick steaks or crispy bacon as much as I am by a slice of peach pie at the height of summer, apple crisp, chocolate chip-studded cookies and chocolate in every form. And, if I don’t adjust the recipes, most of these desserts are packed with saturated fat and sugar.

The American Heart Association recommends that men consume no more than 9 teaspoons of added sugar per day and women no more than 6 teaspoons.

Dessert recipes often contain such a surplus of sugar that we can can reduce it without anyone noticing. As we eat less sugar, we will be satisfied with less sweetness.

Here are five ways to cut sugar when baking:

1. Take it Slowly.

Experts suggest reducing sugar by 25 to 50%, but it will take some trial and error to figure out the best percentage. Sugar impacts the texture, browning and moisture of baked goods. Begin by reducing the sugar in a recipe by 10% and gradually decrease it every time you prepare that recipe.

Sugar reductions are less noticeable in some types of recipes. For example, they may be less apparent in a fruit pie filling, but a cake can be drier with less sugar, requiring a shorter baking time.

The King Arthur Baking Company website offers guidelines to decrease sugar in cookies and cakes, based on various types. The company’s writer also recommends chilling reduced-sugar cookie dough for at least 30 minutes, which increases caramelization.

2. Trick Your Tastebuds.

When it comes to flavor, the eyes influence the tastebuds. We notice the ingredient we see or taste first. For example, King Arthur recommends rolling reduced-sugar cookies in sugar or sprinkling sugar on the tops of muffins. The surface sugar tricks your eyes and your tongue into thinking they are sweeter than they are.

3. Spice It Up.

In addition to acting as a sweetener, sugar adds flavor. You can help trick your tastebuds by incorporating spices commonly used in desserts, such as cinnamon and nutmeg, extracts like vanilla, almond and maple, and naturally sweet stir-ins like unsweetened dried fruit. Fruit purées like unsweetened applesauce also can sweeten a recipe.

4. Try Natural Substitutes.

Some bakers substitute less-refined sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar or Sucanat for granulated white and brown sugar. Sucanat, a tradename for sucre de canne naturel, is a natural sweetener produced from sugar cane juice.

Keep in mind that although these sweeteners are less processed, they don’t necessarily have less sugar. Because they sometimes offer more flavor, they may be used in smaller quantities. If you swap one of these for sugar, it probably cannot be substituted in a 1:1 ratio, and quantities of other ingredients need to be tweaked.

America’s Test Kitchen published Naturally Sweet: Bake All Your Favorites with 30% to 50% Less Sugar, which is filled with recipes using natural sweeteners while providing equivalents for granulated sugar if you prefer. ATK exhaustively tests its recipes, saving you time (and money) in trial-and-error efforts. However, watch for the content of butter and heavy cream in many of the recipes.

5. Choose Chocolate Wisely

What is a chocolate chip cookie without chocolate chips? Lighter recipes usually rely on a smaller quantity of dark chocolate for more chocolate punch compared with milk or semi-sweet chocolate. Naturally Sweet recommends bittersweet chocolate, choosing Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar, which contains less sugar than semisweet chocolate and can be chopped into chunks.

In contrast, some recipes incorporate miniature chocolate chips in smaller quantities, or reduce the amount of chocolate chips, saving some for the tops of the cookies, where you can see them. I’m also considering using half the chocolate chips and adding a sprinkling of high-flavor, antioxidant-rich cacao nibs, which come from dried, fermented and crushed cocoa beans.

In ATK’s The Best Light Recipe, testers reduced the fat in a chocolate cake by replacing half the bittersweet chocolate with cocoa power, blooming the cocoa in water and substituting vegetable oil for butter (using half the amount); then they intensified the chocolate flavor in the lower-fat cake with instant espresso powder.

There are many tricks to baking healthier treats. It just takes a little digging and experimentation.

Looking for more ways to cut sugar? Take a look at this blog post to find out how sugar is surreptitiously sneaking into your diet.