What To Consider Before Substituting Liquid Sweetener For Sugar, According To An Expert

When it comes to baking, precision is everything. Unlike cooking, where a little creative flair can be rewarding, baking is an exact science, with carefully designed recipes that ensure a delicious final product. Though there are so many sweeteners out there that aren't sugar, substituting them in your favorite cookie or cake recipe can yield unpredictable results, creating undesirable textures and flavors. For example, while it may seem simple to swap traditional granulated sugar for a liquid sweetener, expert baker and cookbook author Erin Jeanne McDowell says to tread carefully.

"Substituting sugar with liquid sweeteners can seriously throw off the ratio," McDowell explains, "and these ingredients vary drastically in weight and volume, so they can't be substituted 1:1." For instance, using agave syrup in place of sugar adds a significant amount of moisture to your recipe, which results in a more liquidy batter or dough. As a result, this throws off the amount of time your baked good needs in the oven, potentially giving it a denser, more unappetizing bite in the process.

But it's not just texture that's impacted either. "In addition, many liquid sweeteners actually carry a notably different sweetness level or flavor," McDowell notes. "For example, honey can be a very strong flavor if used as the only sweetener in a recipe, fully taking over the flavor profile." Essentially, if your baked good is chock-full of delicate flavors, like our blueberry-lavender coffee cake, its subtle, nuanced notes might be muted by an overpowering liquid sugar like maple syrup or molasses.

If you must swap out sugar for a liquid sweetener, McDowell advises that you take things slow and get ready for some hiccups down the road. "In general, my advice when people are experimenting is to make small changes at first and be prepared to have a few wonky batches on your way to finding the right end result," she adds. Still, McDowell recommends a simpler approach, requiring just a little bit of online sleuthing. "Even better advice would be to just look for recipes that use the sweeteners you prefer," she suggests. "Let the many recipe developers on the internet do that hard work for you!"

That being said, not all sugar swaps are created equal, with some being much more forgiving than others. "Substituting granulated sugar for brown sugar, for example, is fairly easy because they still share similar properties," McDowell adds. "Brown sugar is slightly more moist, and with its molasses content has a different makeup, but in many recipes, you could get away with it." We've previously recommended brown sugar as a sugar swap for extra chewy cookies, but depending on the recipe, this swap may not be ideal, either. "In others, even this tiny change could drastically impact the end result," McDowell notes. For more baking tips, visit Erin Jeanne McDowell's YouTube channel or follow her on Instagram.