High-intensity sweeteners, like pure stevia and pure monk fruit extracts, are concentrated sugar alternatives mainly used for sweetening purposes and no other culinary role. They work perfectly whenever sweetness is all you need — such as in hot and cold drinks, smoothies, cocktails, yogurt, or to sprinkle over oatmeal. It's also great for sweetening on the go.
When it comes to replacing sugar with these sweeteners, less is more. Being super sweet—100s times sweeter than sugar—a little goes a long way, so measure carefully when you start using them. Because they deliver intense sweetness in tiny amounts, they offer no bulk—meaning no weight, volume, or structure in recipes. They don't contribute to the sensation called mouthfeel as they won't change the texture, thicken, bind ingredients or make them viscous. That’s why they’re called bulk-free sweeteners.
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You can buy bulk-free sweeteners in three forms:
Pure high-intensity sweeteners are powders with no additives or fillers. They contain only one ingredient, such as stevia, monk fruit, or artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, or acesulfame K). Just a tiny pinch will give you the same sweetness level as one teaspoon of sugar.
Sugar-free sweeteners dispensed in drops or squeezes consist mainly of water with a tiny pinch of high-intensity sweeteners, such as stevia, monk fruit, saccharin, or sucralose. Just a few drops or a squeeze provides the same sweetness as a teaspoon of table sugar. I list all the zero-calorie drops HERE.
Tablets combine sweeteners with binders—typically cellulose—that act like a glue to hold them together. One tablet sweeten like one teaspoon of sugar.
Whenever you need a sweetener that contributes not only to a sweet taste but also to texture, shelf life, moisture retention, color, and aroma—look for a bulk sweetener.
The familiar table sugar is a classic bulk sweetener, but it's not zero-calorie. In contrast, zero-calorie bulk sweeteners typically contain a mildly-sweet carbohydrate such as:
Erythritol
Allulose
Sweet fibers
Xylitol
Glucose
Maltodextrin.
These carbohydrates add minimal calories per serving, meeting FDA standards for zero-calorie foods because they provide <5 calories per serving.
Since high-intensity sweeteners are bulk-free, they’re often blended with those carbs to make sugar substitutes that are easier to measure, use, and perform well in recipes. I break down all the important reasons for these blends later in this guide.
In baking, granulated sugar often accounts for 20% to 50% of a recipe’s total weigh—but it does far more than sweeten.
In cookies, sugar typically makes up 30% to 50% of the dough by weight, and contributes 25% to 40% of its volume. Beyond sweetness, it plays a vital role in crispness, browning, and structure.
In cakes, sugar usually represents 20–35% of the batter by weight, and up to 40% in high-ratio recipes. It contributes 15–30% of the volume and plays key roles in tenderness, moisture, and structure—especially in sponge and foam cakes, where it helps stabilize whipped eggs.
All those percentages—weight and volume—show just how much physical space sugar takes up in baked goods. That’s what bulk means: the mass and volume that sugar contributes to the recipe.
When you remove sugar, you’re not just losing sweetness—you’re losing structure, moisture, spread, and browning.
That's why in baking, always choose bulk sweeteners. Bulk-free sweeteners are not recommended as the sole sweetener in baking.
In fact, a rule of thumb for baking is not to replace a bulk sweetener with another that is bulk-free. For example, you don't want to substitute 1 cup of table sugar with 1½ teaspoons of stevia liquid or ½ teaspoon of monk fruit extract.
Without bulk, baking recipes fall flat—literally.
While you can use bulk-free sweeteners in baking recipes to boost sweetness, it needs to be paired with a bulk sweetener to achieve the sugar-like texture.
As mentioned before, bulk-free sweeteners are concentrated sugar alternatives designed purely for sweetening, with no other culinary role. They have zero calories and are super sweet.
Bulk-free sweeteners also don’t brown or caramelize like sugar — though keep in mind that some bulk sweeteners, like erythritol, xylitol, and other polyols, also lack browning and caramelization properties, which can result in pale baked goods.
At WhatSugar™, I showcase various bulk sweeteners available in stores across the U.S. and you can check them out below.
Monk fruit blends often cause confusion, so I’ll use them as an example — but the same applies to blends with other high-intensity sweeteners, like stevia or sucralose.
Nearly all monk fruit products in stores contain bulk sweeteners as main ingredient rather than being pure extracts. These blends are usually predominantly erythritol or allulose, but some may have glucose, maltodextrin, or inulin.
Here's something you might not expect — 99% of the product's weight typically comes from the bulk sweetener, meaning there's only a hint of monk fruit extract.
This raises common questions:
Why is monk fruit mixed with bulk sweeteners?
Isn't that misleading to call the product "monk fruit" when almost all of its weight comes from something else?
It’s a fair concern, and while it can feel like false advertising, there’s more to the story.
Although the weight ratio of bulk sweetener to monk fruit extract can range from 100:1 to :1, most of the sweetness—70% to 99%—actually comes from the monk fruit extract, not the bulk sweetener. This is because the extract is incredibly concentrated, even in small amounts.
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Combining monk fruit extract with bulk sweeteners isn’t just about cutting costs — addressing the sticker shock of pure extract. It’s actually a convenience as they work symbiotically. Here are 3 reasons why manufacturers blend them:
1. Measuring issues:
Monk fruit extract is 20 to 240 sweeter than sugar, so you need to use way less to achieve the same sweetness. As I showcased in the monk fruit extract infographics, just 1/8 to 1/96 teaspoon of extracts replaces 1 teaspoon of sugar. That's a really small amount!
Meanwhile, bulk sweeteners like erythritol and allulose are 30% less sweet, so they require larger amounts to match sugar’s sweetness.
By blending monk fruit extract with a bulk sweetener, manufacturers create a product that’s easier to measure, with a texture and volume similar to sugar. Instead of having to measure or weigh small amounts of pure extract, or having to figure out what's 1/3 more than sugar when using pure bulk sweetener — you can use regular measuring tools you have in your kitchen and swap on a one-to-one ratio like sugar.
Pure monk fruit extract adds no volume and mass to recipes, but blends make it practical for baking or for recipes that rely on sugar’s texture.
2. Taste profile issues:
Monk fruit and bulk sweeteners complement each other, creating a superior flavor profile together than alone. This is known in food science as the multi-sweetener concept.
Bulk sweeteners help mellow down the characteristic taste of the fruit in pure extracts, while monk fruit reduces off-flavors or cooling effect that some bulk sweeteners, like erythritol, can have. This two-way improvement makes the blend more pleasant overall.
In addition, they each work synergistically by boosting their individual sweetness level, so you end up using less of both.
3. Culinary role issues:
As I said before, pure extract works perfectly whenever sweetness is all you need, such as in hot and cold drinks, smoothies, cocktails, yogurt, or to sprinkle over oatmeal. It's also great for sweetening on the go.
But pure extract will not help thicken your food, make it viscous, or bind ingredients. No browning or caramelizing, either, which makes it unsuitable as the sole sweetener in baking. While you can use pure extract in baking recipes to boost sweetness, it needs to be paired with a bulk sweetener to achieve the sugar-like texture.
That’s where monk fruit blends come in handy—they provide the sweetness of the extract along with the bulk and functionality needed for baking success.
It’s worth noting that while the bulk sweetener in the blend is often associated with digestive issues, pure monk fruit extract or pure stevia leaf extract are not. One exception is THIS or THIS bulk sweetener.
Any substance, natural or artificial, that activates the sweet receptor (T1R2-T1R3) (Figure S1) is considered a sweetener [Lee, ]. Hundreds of compounds meet those criteria. From a chemical point of view, sweeteners can be monosaccharides (e.g. glucose), disaccharides (e.g. sucrose), sugar alcohols (e.g. xylitol), glycosides (e.g. stevioside), sulfonamides (e.g. saccharin), amino acids (e.g. monatin), peptides (e.g. aspartame), and proteins (e.g. brazzein) (Table 1). The sweetness potency of sucrose is used as reference to determine that of all other sweeteners. Sugars and sugar alcohols exhibit a sweetness potency around and below 1 in relation to sucrose, and are considered bulk sweeteners, whereas glycosides, sulfonamides, amino acids, peptides, and proteins that activate the sweet receptor show over 10 times higher sweetness in comparison to sucrose, being termed intense sweeteners (Figure 1)[Barclay, , Chattopadhyay, , Lindley, ]. In the food industry, intense sweeteners are characterized by their high sweetening nature, while bulk sweeteners are used to provide volume and mouthfeel [Saltmarsh and Insall, ].
Sweetener Compound Origin Sweetness (relative to sucrose) Calories (kcal/g) Acesulfame KTable 1. Properties of sweeteners [Barclay, , Chattopadhyay, , Lindley, ].
Figure 1. Relative sweetness of sweeteners. Sweetness intensity, compared to sucrose, of bulk sweeteners (purple area) and intense sweeteners (orange area). Natural sweeteners are represented in green, and artificial sweeteners are represented in red [Barclay, , Chattopadhyay, , Lindley, ].
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Barclay, A., Sandall, P., and Shwide-Slavin, C. () The Ultimate Guide to Sugars and Sweeteners: Discover the Taste, Use, Nutrition, Science, and Lore of Everything from Agave to Xylitol. New York: The Experiment.
Chattopadhyay, S., Raychaudhuri, U., and Chakraborty, R. () Artificial Sweeteners – a Review. J. Food Sci. Technol., 51(4):611-621.
Lee, A.A., and Owyang, C. () Sugars, Sweet Taste Receptors, and Brain Responses. Nutrients, 9: E653.
Lindley, M.G. () Natural High-Potency Sweeteners. In: O’Donnell, K. and Kearsley, M. K., editors. Sweeteners and Sugar Alternatives in Food Technology. Oxford, West Sussex, Iowa: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp: 185-207.
Saltmarsh, M. and Insall, L. () Food Additives and Why They Are Used. In: Saltmarsh, M., editor. Essential Guide to Food Additives, 4th Ed. Cambridge: The Royal Society of Chemistry. pp: 1-13.
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Figure S1. Sweet taste receptor.