Isomalt is made from sucrose and looks much like table sugar. It is a mixture of two sugar alcohols: gluco-manitol and gluco-sorbitol. But isomalt contains neither sugar nor alcohol. Sugar alcohols can be found in fruits and vegetables naturally, but for commercial purposes, sugar alcohols are made from other carbohydrates like sucrose, glucose, and starch.

Isomalt is about half as sweet as sugar, and it has only 2 calories per gram. Isomalt can be heated with no loss of sweetness, change in texture, or browning in color. While isomalt can provide nearly the bulk that sugar gives, baked products containing isomalt tend to be crisper and do not brown in the same way when heated. Isomalt is currently used in hard and soft candies, chocolates, ice cream, jams and preserves, baked goods, fillings and fondants, chewing gum and cough drops. Those interested in molecular gastronomy have also found multiple uses for it - skilled practitioners can make it into a wide variety of shapes.