Allulose vs Erythritol: Which to Use and When

For most of the last decade, erythritol was the default answer to replacing sugar in baking. It measured close to one for one, it had almost no energy, and it was cheap. Allulose was the expensive newcomer.

That has shifted. Here is how the two actually compare, and where each one still makes sense.

The Short Version

They are similar on sweetness and energy and completely different under heat. Allulose browns and caramelises. Erythritol does not. If your recipe involves colour, spread or caramel, that single difference decides it.

Side by Side

	Allulose	Erythritol
Type	Rare sugar	Sugar alcohol
Sweetness vs sugar	About 70%	About 70%
Energy	2 kJ/g	Near zero
Browns and caramelises	Yes	No
Cooling aftertaste	No	Yes, pronounced
Texture after baking	Stays soft	Firms and dries
Frozen desserts	Stays scoopable	Can go gritty
Dissolves in liquid	Readily	Less readily, can recrystallise

Heat Is the Real Difference

Allulose participates in the Maillard reaction, the browning that gives baked goods their colour and much of their flavour. It caramelises when heated on its own. That means cookies spread and colour the way a sugar version does, and caramel sauce is actually possible.

Erythritol does neither. Cookies made with it stay pale and hold their shape rather than spreading. For some recipes that is fine. For anything where browning is part of the result, it is a real limitation and no amount of technique fixes it.

One practical caution with allulose: because it browns readily, it browns faster than sugar. Drop your oven temperature slightly or check earlier than the recipe says.

Taste

Erythritol produces a cooling sensation on the tongue, similar to mint without the flavour. In chocolate or a cold drink it can pass unnoticed or even work in your favour. In a warm cookie or a custard it is noticeable and, for a lot of people, off-putting.

Allulose does not do this. Its taste profile sits closer to sugar than any of the common substitutes, which is the other reason it has taken over in baking applications.

Texture and Shelf Life

Erythritol recrystallises as it cools. Baked goods come out firmer and drier, and they stale faster because the sweetener is not holding moisture the way sugar does.

Allulose holds moisture and keeps baked goods softer for longer. It also depresses the freezing point, which is why it works in ice cream and sorbet where erythritol tends to freeze hard and grainy.

Digestive Tolerance

Both are incompletely absorbed and both can cause digestive discomfort in larger quantities. Tolerance varies a lot between individuals, and the only sensible approach with either is to start small.

In Australia, labels on foods containing D-allulose are required to carry an advisory statement about the risk of a laxative effect from high intakes in some food classes.

Labelling in Australia

For anyone formulating a product rather than baking at home, this is where allulose has a clear advantage. FSANZ approved D-allulose as a novel food in August 2024. Under the approval, allulose is excluded from the sugars figure declared in the nutrition information panel, and products containing it can still make sugar content claims including no added sugar.

That is a meaningful difference on a shelf where the sugars line is what a buyer reads first.

So Which One

Use allulose for cookies, caramel, anything that needs to brown, ice cream, custards, and any commercial product where the nutrition panel matters.

Erythritol still suits cold applications where the cooling effect is not a problem, and situations where absolute lowest energy content is the priority.

We no longer produce erythritol. For the great majority of what people were using it for, allulose does the same job and handles heat properly.

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