Sugar does more than sweeten: it adds bulk, moisture, browning, and tenderness. That is why swapping it is trickier than swapping a spice. A sugar substitute converter must match sweetness first, then warn about what else changes. This tool converts a sugar weight into honey, maple syrup, agave, erythritol, or stevia extract, with the amount already adjusted for sweetness, so you can judge whether the swap suits your recipe before you bake.
The maths is a sweetness factor per substitute. Honey and maple syrup are sweeter than sugar and add liquid, so they need only three quarters of the sugar weight: 200 grams of sugar becomes 150 grams of honey or maple. Agave is sweeter still, so it needs about two thirds, or 134 grams for the same 200 grams of sugar. Erythritol is less sweet, so it needs a quarter more, or 250 grams. Pure stevia extract is hundreds of times sweeter, so it needs only about 1 gram for 200 grams of sugar, which is why it cannot replace sugar bulk in cakes.
Here is a worked example. A cookie recipe calls for 200 grams of sugar, and you choose honey. The converter gives 150 grams of honey. Because honey adds liquid, reduce another liquid, like milk or water, by about 60 millilitres, and expect the cookies to brown faster and spread a little more, so check them five minutes before the recipe time. If you choose erythritol instead, you need 250 grams, no liquid change, and a slightly cooler aftertaste that most people notice only in large amounts or in plain recipes.
Liquid sweeteners change texture, not just sweetness. Honey keeps cakes moist for days, which suits fruit cakes and muffins, but it can make crisp cookies soft. Maple syrup adds a warm flavour that suits pancakes, oatmeal, and autumn baking, but it can overpower a delicate vanilla cake. Agave dissolves easily in cold drinks and dressings, which is its best use, but in baking it browns fast and can make cakes sticky. Choose the liquid sweetener whose flavour you want in the finished dish, not just the one in the cupboard.
Dry substitutes have their own trade-offs. Erythritol measures almost like sugar and bakes well in muffins and cookies, but it does not caramelise like sugar and it recrystallises when cool, which can make frostings gritty. Stevia extract gives sweetness with almost no calories and no bulk, which suits drinks, yoghurt, and sauces, but a cake made with stevia alone will be small, dry, and dense, because sugar bulk is part of the structure. For cakes, the honest approach is to replace only part of the sugar with stevia and keep the rest as sugar or erythritol.
A few rules keep sugar swaps safe. Replace one sweetener at a time, and keep the rest of the recipe unchanged, so you can tell what the swap did. Reduce liquid when you use honey, maple, or agave, and check the bake early, because liquid sweeteners brown faster. Taste the batter before baking when you use stevia or erythritol, because sweetness perception varies and a small correction is easy before the oven but impossible after. With the right amount and the right expectations, a sugar swap is a useful tool, not a gamble.
Sugar alcohols beyond erythritol, like xylitol and maltitol, follow the same logic with different factors, and they carry one warning worth knowing. Xylitol measures nearly one to one with sugar and bakes well, but it is highly toxic to dogs, so a household with a dog should keep xylitol bakes out of reach and never share them. Maltitol is close to sugar in sweetness but raises blood sugar more than erythritol, which matters for people managing diabetes. Whatever substitute you choose, read the packet: blends sold as baking sugar often mix erythritol with stevia or monk fruit, and the packet ratio, not a generic factor, is the number to trust for that product.