Brown rice syrup and maple syrup: For baking, these make great lower-calorie sweeteners. Brown rice syrup, popular in many natural and “health food” brand granolas and snack foods, is made by cooking brown rice until it turns into syrup. We embrace maple syrup as the time-tested topping for pancakes and waffles, but using a tablespoon or two to sweeten baked goods has become a popular trend (like this basic chocolate cake recipe from 101 Cookbooks, e.g.).