I’m making a duck for dinner (don’t look at me like that, I got it for less than $8 at Aldi), and I just realized that the only orange marmalade I have hanging around to glaze it with is reduced sugar with Splenda. Will it work? (Meaning, will it firm up and glaze like sugar, not will it taste good.) I know Splenda’s one of the few sugar substitutes you can bake with, so I assume it won’t break down in the high heat, but I don’t know if it acts like sugar otherwise.
Here’s a recipe for a Splenda glaze: http://www.recipezaar.com/65999
Hmm…despite the name “glaze”, that recipe is for an icing, on top of already baked goods, not fatty animal skin. I’m not sure I can extrapolate success from one to the other. (I also understand why it didn’t work for the reviewer - blended corn starch without heating? Ick! You have to heat corn starch to boiling before the starch will explode and thicken stuff. All that blending does is make really, really fine cornmeal.)
Okay, sorry. 
Oh, but thank you! (I’m so rude, I’m sorry!)
It did give me the idea to search for other glaze recipes, and I found this message board. Lots of good information in the last post. That led me to look more closely at the marmalade label, and the third ingredient (after “oranges”) is polydextrose, so maybe it will work…
I would say that your marmalade will glaze up more than it currently is in the bottle. It won’t turn into a true sticky glaze that you’d expect from a traditional marmalade, and the available sugars to caramelize would be less overall, but I’d wager that it’d be an appropriate substitute.
But, if you’re going to have duck fat, you might as well have full sugar glaze as well! 
No kidding! I saved up my Weight Watchers Points for the week for that meal, you bet!
It wasn’t that I was trying to save calories - it was that the marmalade I had on hand was reduced sugar because I bought it for breakfast eatin’ on days when I am trying to save calories. I just didn’t want to go to the store for another jar of marmalade.
In the end, I mixed in a couple of spoonfuls of brown sugar, a splash of orange juice and a couple dashes of soy sauce. It was…what’s the word…freakin’ awesome.
I thought we were going to have a PETA moment when my 3 year old found out what was in the oven:
“What’s that?”
“It’s a duck. It’s for dinner.”
“Duck…the amimal?”
“Yep.”
“…Does it have eyes?”
“Well, it used to, but someone chopped its head off and pulled out all its feathers and now we’re going to eat it.”
She looked a little shocked, and thought about it for a moment. “I want to eat the duck!”
Yesterday, she proudly told her grandmother she ate duck, and requested it for dinner again. Whew! No baby vegetarians in my house!
There IS hope for America’s future!!!
Reminds me of going somewhere in the car a few years ago with my son. There seemed to be an extraordinary number of roadkill deer along the way. My son said, “Oh, I just HATE seeing dead animals.” Then paused thoughtfullly and went on to add, “Unless it’s steak.”
You pretty much did the same thing as using the full sugar version then, and got the extra sweet from the splenda. Good show!
This brings a tear to my eye. Nothing like the image of a budding carnivore. I only hope my daughter says the same things about game from my hunting & fishing.
Some friends of mine had the exact opposite situation - driving along through the countryside, past a field of sheep, the youngster exclaimed “Oh, look at the lambs!”, then after a few moments, "there’s an animal called ‘lamb’, and a food called ‘lamb’ - isn’t that strange…? "