Cooking and baking with Splenda
 

Does anyone have much experience? I use it a lot for sweetening things like berries, whipped cream, cereal, etc., because I try to watch carbs. However, I haven't done much cooking with it.

Anyway, I decided on an experiment. I LOVE pumpkin pie and usually only eat it during the holidays, however, upon examining a can of pumpkin, I found it is very low in carbs. The recipe I use calls for evaporated milk, which is also very low in carbs. Then, there are spices and eggs (negligible carbs) and then the evil sugar and, of course, the crust. Anyway, I decided to make a pie and substitute Spenda for the sugar. I know there are blends of sugar and Splenda, but I decided to just do Spenda, since the measurements, are one-for-one to substitute.

Anyway, the pie turned out much lighter in color than regular pie since Splenda doesn't brown like sugar and the texture was very fluffy - almost like a chiffon, but not quite. It also didn't rise as much. I thought the flavor was not great, but pretty good. I fed it to a couple of people, while it was still warm, who agreed my assessment.

Anyway, I refrigerated it overnight and today it seemed more like regular pie in texture and taste. I'm pretty pleased. The good news is that I calculated that a 10 inch pie cut into eight slices is a little less than 8 net carbs, minus the crust, which I didn't eat all of. And whipped cream with it, sweetened with Splenda is pretty low in carbs too.

Anyway, any other success stories or disasters to share?

My husband bakes fresh pumpkin pies over the holidays and uses Splenda. By fresh, I mean, boil chunks of a pumpkin left over from Halloween, drain, cool, then peel. Refrigerate, and a day or two later drain the water that will accumulate at the bottom of the bowl, mash the pumpkin, measure, add spices, add egg, evaporated milk and Splenda. Sometimes he substitutes condensed milk for evaporated, and uses no Splenda in that case. Of course, condensed milk contains lots of sugar, so the pie is no longer sugar-free in that case.

If I were making the pie, I would probably try a combination of Splenda and brown sugar, which I assume might work somewhat better from a taste-and-color perspective. But that would defeat the purpose of a guilt-free pumpkin pie.

The Splenda-only fresh pumpkin pies are an acquired taste, IMO, but I have grown to prefer them to regular pumpkin pie. I feel they are more healthful, anyway, and I probably would find it difficult to readjust to the traditional canned-pumpkin, sugar-containing pie. Differences aren't really that major, but, yes, I think I truly prefer Splenda pumpkin pie now. But it was an adjustment at first.

There are recipes out there to make condensed milk from evaporated milk, splenda, and dry milk powder for those who really don't want any added sugar.

I'm not a fan of splenda when baking. The granulated stuff just tastes weird to me, we bought a bag years ago (at least six years ago, we moved with it) and I just finished it up last month because we ran out of sugar.

The blends were a bit better but still wasn't crazy about them.

If you are using a tablespoon or two they were fine, but when something called for replacing a cup of sugar, it was just too overpowering.

The granulated was too light to add the texture sugar added, and as you use half the amount of the blends as sugar in a recipe all the proportions of the recipe could be messed up and you would have to do trial and error to get it the right consistency.

Though a bakery a few miles away makes a sugar free cannoli pie that is wonderful, so not sure how they manage that, they won't say.

I'm not a fan of Splenda in baking either. As an experiment, I made some muffins with the Splenda they market as perfect for baking, and the muffins had horrible texture when cooled enough to eat. Refrigerated, the texture was completely inedible. They weren't sweet enough either. I had to throw out the batch--I couldn't stand eating them at all. I wouldn't dare bake a whole cake with Splenda if muffins turned out that way. For my tea/coffee Spenda is fine, but for baking I stick to real sugar.

I add it to sweeten dishes eg curries but haven't baked with it. Great ... and saves calories.

Yeah, I'd think I'd be hesitant to bake something like a cake or muffins - something that needs to rise, but a pie, puddings, etc., seems like worth experimenting with.

I have made cheesecake with Splenda numerous times and it turns out great and is widely praised by those consuming it. I do use a water bath to help keep the cheesecake moist while baking. I have also made chocolate peanut butter oatmeal drop cookies with Splenda that turned out well. I am don't bake cakes, pastries or complex desserts so I can't speak beyond cheesecake, no bake cookies and using it to sweeten berries or tea. I like it for all of those things.

I have some tips on this :)

I like diamond stevia sugar blend better for baking. It is more calories yes, but the texture is better.

Truvia, is the suck for baking, it gets so bitter it is not edible. I made the mistake of trying to caramelize it on a brulee one time, and whew, I thought I was going to lose my mouth it was so bitter. I really liked the way it hardened up, and had high hopes only to be dashed by the sheer bitterness!

Splenda doesn't do well in custards or puddings, but the splenda blends and the stevia blends do. I sometimes uses pure agave nectar for making candies and puddings, it works really well, as long as you need or want a caramel color.

Splenda is the brand name of Sucralose, which is a modification of Sucrose (commom sugar).
To me, it is the best non-caloric sweetner.

You can buy Sucralose much cheaper than Splenda. It can be bought at Costco or Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/EZ-Sweetz-2oz-.../dp/B002MO765O

Splenda has some cellulose in its formula so that it could have an equivalent volume as sugar, but this interferes with cooking.
Pure Sucralose also has different properties for cooking than sugar: it does not retains liquids the same way sugar do, nor gives "viscosity" to the preparation.
If you buy pure Sucralose, you can try to compensate for some of these differences with some thickener, such as Xanthan or Guar gum (both vegetable extracts, widely use on cooking).