I've seen a recipe using a sweetener instead of sugar for caramel. I'm wondering what kind of sweetener would actually work for this - the recipe didn't specify.
Various sweeteners I've seen in the shop are pretty different:
What process am I actually looking at when making a (...) + butter + sour cream caramel? What ingredient makes it possible?
I'm pretty sure that what the recipe means by "granulated sweetener of choice" is the choice between Sugar, raw cane sugar, or light or dark brown sugars. All these can be used to create delicious caramels.
The only non-caloric sweetener that I knew of that is chemically similar to sugar, and so might have a chance at caramelizing was sucralose. ... but everything that I've read up on it says it's heat stable (but that might just be at baking temperatures).
Searching for 'sucralose caramel', I was able to find a few recipes, but they all seem to be using a mix of sucralose and some other sugar. ("Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking" is not pure sucralose)
But that search also found:
... which uses "Surkin Gold", which is erythritol, derived from glucose.
So I suspect it's possible to replace some of the sugar with sugar-derived non-caloric sweeteners, but you may need to experiment with exactly how much you can get away with, and may need to tweak your process slightly.
It’s my understanding that Erythritol sweetener can be used in making caramel because unlike other sugar substitutes this one does brown similar to regular sugar. Keep in mind that it’s only 70% as sweet as sugar so you may have to counter balance it somehow in the end with a few drops of liquid stevia or you may like the more buttery less sugar taste of the caramel.
