The Coffee Revolution : New Sugar for Your Coffee

The NutraSweet Co. has come up with a new kind of sugar, a blend of 99% granulated sugar and 1% aspartame called Sugar Delight light sugar blend. The company says the artificial sweetener is about 200 times as sweet as sugar, which, NutraSweet claims, means you can use less of the product (and therefore consume less sugar). If, on the other hand, you casually load up your coffee, cereal or lemonade with the sugar blend, you’ll pay the usual consequences. Teaspoonful by teaspoonful, the difference in calories isn’t that great.

Introduced in July, Sugar Delight is moving into major chains, including Vons, Lucky and Hughes. The suggested retail price is $1.79 for a sack of 50 packets (each packet contains about one-half teaspoon) or $2.99 for 100 packets.

Raw sugar is the sweetener in Trader Joe’s Crunchy Dessert Scones. A package of four sells for $1.98 and includes three flavors--chocolate-almond crunch (you get two of these), lemon-almond crunch and plain almond crunch, each topped with chopped nuts. A cross between shortbread and biscuits, they’re made with unbleached flour, sweet butter, raw sugar, buttermilk and other natural ingredients. You can eat them as is, or split and fill with ice cream or frozen yogurt for a quick dessert.

For best results, warm the scones in the toaster oven until they are crisp and cookie-like on the outside, but soft inside. If you prefer the texture of a soft biscuit, place them in the microwave on medium for a few seconds, just until warm. They freeze well too and can go straight from the freezer to the microwave.