Sugar to Sweetener Converter

Not always. Sugar does more than sweeten — it adds bulk, moisture, browning, and structure. Granulated sweeteners like erythritol and xylitol work best as direct replacements. Liquid sweeteners like honey and agave require reducing other liquids in the recipe. Concentrated sweeteners like stevia need a bulking agent to replace the lost volume.

Stevia is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar by weight. This means you need just 0.5g of stevia powder to replace 100g of sugar in terms of sweetness. However, you will need to make up the lost bulk with another ingredient.

Erythritol bakes similarly to sugar but does not caramelise or brown. It is about 70% as sweet, so you need about 1.4 times the quantity. It can have a slight cooling effect on the tongue and may crystallise if the batter or dough is cold.

By sweetness, honey is about 25% sweeter, so 80% of the sugar weight matches the sweetness. In practice honey also replaces bulk, so the standard culinary swap (King Arthur Baking) is about 3/4 cup honey per 1 cup of sugar. Reduce other liquids by about 25ml for every 100g of honey used, and lower the oven temperature by about 15°C (≈25°F) as honey browns faster than sugar.

Xylitol is safe for humans and works as a 1:1 sugar replacement by weight. It bakes well and tastes very similar to sugar. However, it is extremely toxic to dogs — never use xylitol in baking if dogs may have access to the finished product.