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I need to bake a cake without fructose, so all forms of granulated sugar and most syrups (including honey, agave & maple syrup) are out. I've heard of granulated dextrose but can't find it. I'd like to use Glucose Syrup instead of sugar but need to know how to alter the recipe to compensate for using a syrup instead of granulated sugar.

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5 Answers 5

"Corn syrup" (not HFCS) is supposed to be a primarily glucose syrup, though some formulations contain dextrose. It should not have any fructose in it, though I don't know if any of the brands guarantee that. Karo syrup contained HFCS up until a year ago or so, but it's since been removed. Your best bet would be to contact the manufacturer(s) and ask.

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dextrose is glucose. –  JDelage Mar 11 '11 at 8:36

Dextrose in powder form is very easy to get a hold of! As mentioned before, it is a very common ingredient in brewing, and is readily available from homebrew stores. While not as cheap as traditional table sugar, it isn't expensive either. Search online to see if there are any homebrew stores local to you.

Here's one place to get it.

And another place

And why not one more for good measure

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Dextrose (which is identical to glucose for cooking purposes) has relative sweetness of 50% to 75% of sucrose (i.e. normal sugar). Source: chestofbooks.com/food/science/Experimental-Cookery/… –  Evgeni Sergeev Oct 14 '13 at 0:38

You can get pure powdered glucose aka dextrose: look in the home-brewing supplies of your local supermarket or department store. I don't home-brew myself, but I'm told that one of the steps involved requires dextrose. Fructose doesn't work right, for some reason.

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Is there a Fructose Malabsorption support group near you, or that you could email? They may have some good resources on this which you could use to start your experiments. Good luck!

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You would A) need to use more syrup than the recipe calls for sugar as it's not as sweet and B) reduce the amount of liquid from other sources (milk, oil etc). It will probably vary from recipe to recipe - a bit of experimentation is needed I would think.

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I don't think that it will be that easy. I think that those two sugars behave differently. –  uncle brad Jan 24 '11 at 14:55
Hence the recommendation to experiment :) I have looked in vain for more information on this. I assume the need for a no-fructose cake arises from an allergy, which I thought would mean there'd be plenty of info online. Suffice it to say, there ain't. –  ElendilTheTall Jan 24 '11 at 15:44
Thanks for the advice, I'll get experimenting! –  user4450 Jan 24 '11 at 21:17

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