Food Chemistry 48 (1993) 169-172 An alternative formula for the sweetening of reduced-calorie cakes El-Said A. Attia Happy Taste for Food Industries Co., lOth of Ramadan City, Egypt & Hassan A. Shehata & Ahmed Askar Department of Food Technology, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt (Received 11 September 1992; revised version received and accepted 5 January 1993) A calorie-reduced sponge cake was formulated by using aspartame and/or acesulfame-K as sweeteners, fructose as a sugar substitute, and polydextrose as a bulking agent. On the basis of chemical, physical, and sensory analyses of the experimental combinations, it was demonstrated that adding any sweeteners as replacement for sucrose resulted in a decrease in the quality and acceptability of the resultant cake. A formulation involving fructose and polydextrose gave a product acceptability similar to that of the control sample. At the same time, the cake samples achieved 40% reduction in calories. INTRODUCTION Most low-calorie foods are better designated as 'reduced-calorie' since technically the food cannot be formulated or processed without some ingredients that yield calories. Such diets are used for maintenance of the ideal weight and for weight reduction. A significant number of people are overweight, and obesity is frequently cited as a serious health problem. Dietetic foods suitable for diabetics may have the same 'calorie-value' but are used as a sugar substitute, which is intended to replace sucrose. Fructose and sugar alcohols sorbitol, mannitol, lactitol, and xylitol are often allowed for diabetics, since their metabolism does not require insulin (Askar & Treptow, 1985). Non-nutritive sweeteners can also be used in such diets. These are sweetening substances, which are not metabolised, such as saccharin and acesulfame-K, or which are contributing only a negligible amount of energy as normally consumed, such as aspartame and thaumatin (Askar, 1991). Aspartame and acesulfame-K are 150-180 times as sweet as sucrose. Aspartame has a clean, sweet taste, but prolonged or intense heat can induce break- down of the product, making it difficult to use in bakery products (Claninger et al., 1974; Beck, 1978). On the other hand, acesulfame-K is stable for nearly all applications as a sweetener in foods. Its sweet taste remains unchanged under heat exposure (Von Rymon Lipinski et al., 1981; Askar et al., 1985). 169 Hess et al. (1983) studied the effects of using aspartame and fructose and combinations of the two substances on the properties of some cake brands. They found that the prepared cake with added fructose (at a level of 25%) was judged more tender than similarly baked cake with only aspartame. The same trend was also observed for textural and taste characteristics. Askar et al. (1987) studied the effect of using a mixture of sucrose (at levels of zero, 25, 50, and 100%) with sugar substitutes (fructose, xylitol, and sorbitol) or sweeteners (acesulfame-K, aspartame, and saccharin) on the properties of the resultant dietetic cake. The findings obtained showed that the replacement of sucrose with sweeteners or sugar substitutes, at levels of above 25% resulted in a decrease in the quality and acceptability of cake. Polydextrose is a bulking agent that supplies only 1 kcal per gram. It is reported to contribute no sweet- ness or flavour to products in which it is an ingredient and to give the appropriate texture and mouth feel, qualities normally provided by sugar (Torres et al., 1981; Freeman, 1982). This study was undertaken to determine whether polydextrose and sweeteners (aspartame and acesul- fame-K) and/or fructose could be used to replace the sweetness and functional properties of sucrose in sponge cake, so that a significant reduction would be obtained in the caloric content and sucrose content of the product.