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I have a cake recipe that consists of a dry part, a liquid oil part and eggs. Around half of the dry part consists of sugar. I would like to replace that sugar with liquid stevia concentrate at a very small fraction of the original sugar. If I do that though, then around half of the dry ingredients would be removed from the recipe.

How would I adjust such a recipe? Would I reduce the eggs and liquid oil part proportionally to how much of the dry part has been removed? Anything else that I would need to take into consideration? For example, since the sugar is not soluble in the liquid part, I'm thinking it must also bring certain physical properties to the cake.

I noticed that if I replace the sugar with an erythritol / xylitol blend, then the end result is very similar to the sugar product, so maybe there's a similar bulking agent I could use instead of the sugar? Polyols add sweetness as well, so they wouldn't work in conjunction with the stevia concentrate, it would ideally have to be something neutral.

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  • what is the "concentrate" you are talking about ?
    – Max
    Nov 30, 2017 at 18:15
  • @Max, it's liquid stevia concentrate, but it would be used in extremely small quantities (a few drops in a kilogram of batter), so it will likely not contribute anything to the physical properties of the cake.
    – rid
    Nov 30, 2017 at 18:19
  • Does the recipes call for water? If so this can help the calculation.
    – Alchimista
    Dec 10, 2017 at 11:57
  • @Alchimista, no, there's no water in the recipe.
    – rid
    Dec 13, 2017 at 20:36
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    Aren't you pretty much depriving your batter of one of the substances for the Maillard reaction and other reactions that lead to characteristic flavors from sugar? I've halved the amount of sugar in an NY Cheesecake recipe from a book without much trouble (I got there with multiple tests/iterations), but I'd never remove sugar completely. Besides flour and sugar are both carbohydrates and have a similar calorie density.
    – 0xC0000022L
    Jun 2, 2018 at 21:12

2 Answers 2

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Use dextrin.

On the theory that dextrin (insoluble fiber) is molecularly similar to sucrose, I made chocolate chip cookies and substituted dextrin 1:1 for all the sugar, sweetening the dough with erythritol (and regular chocolate chips). I used the CVS brand dextrin which is sold with fiber supplements like Metamucil. A brand name for dextrin is Benefiber. It is very much a bulking agent exactly as you request. It has no flavor.

The dough was the right consistency and the end product was more the consistency of shortbread than a toll house cookie, but they were good. No GI issues either.

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  • Hmm, I thought dextrins are digestible carbohydrates. The only dextrin I know about is maltodextrin, which is an easily digestible short-chain starch. Looks like Benefiber uses "wheat dextrin". I'll have to look more into that. Thanks for the idea!
    – rid
    Dec 30, 2018 at 11:16
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(depending on the cake)

You can fill in the loss of "sugar" bulk with apple sauce, apple juice, egg whites, plain unsweetened yogurt.

From what I can see on the internets, most of the time, recipes use apple sauce.

I suggest looking/searching for a stevia cake recipe on the webs to get the proper replacement ratios.

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  • Wouldn't all of these options significantly alter the taste of the cake though?
    – rid
    Nov 30, 2017 at 19:33
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    it depends on the cake (and frosting) Me think you can't have it both ways, substitution will always have side effects, change taste, change texture...
    – Max
    Nov 30, 2017 at 19:53

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