Splenda is fine to use, and you an add lemon juice too. Dried figs are great, and quite sweet on their own. Here, I am also diabetic as well as having a very high level of potassium which needs medication as well as avoidence. I must avoid these things most of the time, but my little fig tree out back is now loaded with green figs (brown turkey variety), that should start to slowly ripen in a few more weeks. I don't know about canning figs unless it was for making a thickened filling for fig squares.

Ken's far more an expert on Splenda than I am, especially on the amount of Splenda to substitute for sugar. I know it isn't 1:1 and the greater the amount used the greater the likelihood of a disagreeable aftertaste. The NCHFP site also has information on using sugar substitutes in jams, etc., as well as tips for overcoming some of the issues associated with substituting one sweetener for another in canning.

As far as the other question on the pickled cherry tomatoes, recipe, it should be OK, but I can't give you a definitive answer. You might want to try 1 pint using the Splenda and see how it holds up over time. Sucralose doesn't have the same preservative quality as sugar, but in this case it's the vinegar that's doing the preserving and the tomatoes are refrigerated, not canned, so it shouldn't be an issue.

There haven't been enough studies about Splenda in canning; nor have there been enough recipes developed. The need is definitely out there and hopefully more work will be done in the near future.

It's a common mistake to assume that sucralose can be substituted and the same processing time as that in the original recipe can be used, which is not necessarily the case.

One thing people forget is that sucralose is a different molecular weight from sugar and the boiling point is different. So some have reported spoilage problems with foods like canned pickled beets with Splenda and until testing is done we don't know if it's due to the usual factors (i.e. seal failure, chipped jar rim, improperly prepared lids, etc.) or due to the fact that because of the difference in boiling point the processing time for the Splenda pickled beets was too short. More and more food scientists are regarding that as something to be accounted for in spoilage issues.

That's why, ideally, tested recipes developed specifically for Splenda would be used. Otherwise all you can do is wing it and hope it works out.

Carol

thanks Carol, I was sorta afraid it wasn't as easy as substituting splenda (or anything else). I'm thinking she would be better off going the freezing route -- for the figs using sugar-less pectiin.
For the tomatoes, I think I'll suggest that she forget sweet and go with dill, processed or maybe refrigerated. Of course, it's not going to help that she is very paranoid about canning and just before I arrived at the store, I had heard (and so had she) about the hot dog chili sauce botulism cases.
At least they can't blame us home canners for that one.

if I can't solve her fig oversupply, so you think it'd be presumpstious to offer to take some of them off her hands?

When I can with Splenda, as mentioned here, I always use extra acid. Annie mentioned that she doesn't like too much vinegar in her pickles. Here, my pickles are mostly all neraly full 5% strength, with little, if any, water added. Not sure about pickling a cherry tomato, unless its for green cherry tomatoes. Ripe ones conatin quite a lot of liquid and if pickled, would become total mush (with seeds and skins) in the jars. Drying cherry tomato halves is about the only way they can be preserved.