Splenda has trouble passing the baking test

America's sweet tooth starts chomping in earnest this time of year. The makers of Splenda, a new no-calorie sweetener, want to soften the bite.

"Made from sugar, tastes like sugar - Splenda enables guilt-free holiday cooking and baking," says a press release from McNeil Specialty Products Co., a division of Johnson & Johnson, which last month began selling the sweetener in granular form, in boxes and tabletop packets.

Indeed, the promise of Splenda is that it retains its sweetness and stability under high temperatures, giving it a decided advantage over other no-calorie sweeteners, which are not recommended for baking.

The trade name for sucralose, Splenda was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 and until now has been available only as an ingredient in drinks, pie fillings, sauces and other products. Made from rearranged sugar molecules, it passes through the body without being metabolized. It also has no effect on blood glucose levels, making it suitable for diabetics.

But does Splenda keep its promise in baking? Will it really help us "combat the needless extra pounds resulting from the cakes, cookies and sweet nothings that are a regular part of holiday fare," as the press release touts?

For one thing, the butter and chocolate in those sweet nothings are probably more responsible for the "needless" pounds, so replacing sugar with Splenda will make some caloric difference but not a lot - if you don't decrease fat, too.

Another way to look at it: You can avoid those pounds because once you've made desserts with Splenda they are likely to go uneaten. I tried Splenda in several recipes, with uneven results, including a couple of bombs.

Chocolate-chip cookies, for instance, stayed in doughy clumps, refusing to spread or soften as they baked. The Dutch Chocolate Cake with Creamy Chocolate Icing, the very low-fat recipe on the back of the Splenda box, was so rubbery that it practically bounced in the sink as I was throwing it down the garbage disposal. A favorite banana muffin recipe made with Splenda was more successful, although noticeably less tender than the version made with real sugar.

In recipes where sugar is used simply as a sweetener rather than for its contribution to chemical reactions in baking, Splenda fared better. I made apple pie and custard with it, and both turned out fine, with a subtle sweetness.

Still, the box says Splenda is "great for cooking and baking" and that it can be used to replace sugar one-for-one in "most of your favorite recipes." Yet the label doesn't give any further guidance. The company's Web site offers more information, but still doesn't include significant information that could be helpful to a cook.

In recipes such as cookies and cakes, "where sugar plays a critical role, we need to do some fine tuning," said Ampy Vasquez, spokeswoman for McNeil.

For example, my Splenda-substituted cookies stayed in clumps because cookies spread as a result of sugar melting, explained Carolyn Merkel, director of research and development for McNeil. That's why Merkel recommends flattening Splenda-containing cookies with a fork before baking; even so, the texture won't be the same, she says. Since sugar adds structure to cakes, substituting Splenda could result in "something like a Frisbee," said Merkel. That's why she advises adding nonfat dry milk powder when using it in cakes (for every cup of Splenda, add 1/2 cup of nonfat dry milk powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda).

While the company figures out how to explain all this to consumers, right now it may be safer to make cookies with the real thing - and save the Splenda for coffee.

Bars for breakfast?

The new Milk 'n Cereal Bars from General Mills may have the "nutrition of a bowl of cereal and milk," as the box claims, but they also have the taste of a bowl of cereal with a lot of sugar sprinkled on top. Made with familiar products (Rice Chex, Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch), these are the next evolution in cereal bars, containing a "milk filling," made of nonfat dry milk powder, plus sugar, palm kernel oil and partly hydrogenated soybean oil. Think canned vanilla frosting. Then the whole thing is coated with an armor of corn syrup.

The company says one breakfast bar contains the vitamin and mineral content of 1 cup cereal topped with 1/2 cup milk, and is "ideal for busy families who don't always have the time for a sit-down breakfast." Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group, says cereal bars are "clearly better than candy, but they're not cereal and milk." And besides, adds Hurley, "What's more convenient than sitting down to a bowl of cereal?"

The latest craze in that cereal aisle? Products specifically formulated for women. Last month, Quaker Oats rolled out Quaker Oatmeal Nutrition for Women, an instant hot cereal fortified with nutrients that have become hot buttons for females - including calcium, iron, folic acid and soy protein.

The fortification levels - 35 percent of the recommended daily allowances of calcium, iron and folic acid - aren't that different from the company's regular instant oatmeal, which contains 25 percent of the RDA for those nutrients. But Cathy Kapica, senior scientist for Quaker, said it's the only instant hot cereal made with soy protein (albeit not that much per serving) and that the heart-healthy benefits of oatmeal are part of the package, too. Kapica adds that cereals fortified with up to 100 percent of the RDA for certain nutrients aren't "nutritionally sound" since the body can't absorb them all at once anyway.