Question on eggs, almonds and sugar

[whole milk]

I enjoy making new things. A favorite cookie I make uses two parts almond flour to one part confection sugar an one part dried melon rehydrated with Grand Manier and held together with an egg yolk. The resulting product isn't cooked, rather its pressed for three days under a heavy weight and then cut into delicious bite sized pieces.

I'd like to play with this idea but use stevia in place of the sugar but I'm wondering if the egg will be safe. In other words, I think the sugar keeps the egg from going off but I'm not positive. An alternative might be to use egg white or even to bake it but I'm still curious about the egg yolk and the sugar.

Any idea out there?

[Alix]

I don't have the foggiest. Sorry whole milk. Hopefully someone will come along soon who knows.

[Michael in FtW]

Sugar is a preservative - so I don't know about how well the stevia would work in that capacity (drawing out the moisture and making it unavailable for microbe growth).

[apple*tart]

I don't have a definitive answer for you, but my instinct is to not change a recipe containing raw eggs unless you're absolutely certain it would be safe to do so.
In the US you can find pasteurized egg product in the dairy/egg section of the grocery store - that might be a good alternative to regular raw egg yolks. I still wouldn't change the recipe if you use that, but it may be somewhat safer. Or, you could just ditch the recipe and come up with something different.

[whole milk]

I agree that the sugar is the preservative; however, egg whites might be a different story. In either case, I'm going to try drying them out at a low temperature in the oven and see how that works.

Cheers,