Cooking With Syrup

Consider cooking with syrup if you want to avoid using plain sugar in your recipes. This article looks at 5 main syrups often used when cooking sweet dishes or baking and you will no doubt get some further ideas from reading these brief descriptions.

Golden Syrup

Gold syrup comes from concentrated liquid white sugar so it is a by-product in the sugar refining process. Closely related to it is dark syrup. Dark syrup is not so refined as golden syrup and it has a stronger taste, apart from being darker in color, hence the name.

Golden syrup is easily available in supermarkets. You may have to look at little harder for Dark syrup, perhaps going to one of the large supermarkets.

Some eat golden syrup spread on toast or tea cakes. But generally it is using in baking or in sweet dishes.

These are just 3 ideas of how to use golden syrup when preparing a sweet dish:

Treacle Tarts: mix golden syrup with breadcrumbs and lemon juice to form the filling. Flapjacks: Mix the golden syrup with the rolled oats for a chewy texture. Sponge Pudding: Golden syrup gives the spong pudding it's flavor and color.

A note on storage: It keeps for up to a year and even if you notice it starts to crystallize it is still usable.

Corn Syrup

Corn syrup is often used much the same as golden syrup, especially in America. It comes from sweetcorn although it doesn't have quite the same full flavor as golden syrup and the consistency is a little thinner too.

It is commonly used over pancakes rather than the expensive maple syrup.

Maple Syrup

Canada is a big producer of maple syrup. It's taken from the sap of Maple trees and boiled until it reduces to a pale, thin syrup.

The process is quite involved and pure Maple syrup can be quite expensive. For those who have tasted it though, nothing else will do! Especially on pancakes.

Of course you will see cheaper bottles of maple syrup on the supermarket shelves but don't be deceived. If it's a low price it is probably only a percentage pure maple syrup. Just check the label to be sure if in doubt.

Apart from using it on waffles and pancakes, some like to pour it over ice cream or on sponge puddings.

Molasses

Molasses is a natural syrup drawn from cane juice. It is very healthy as it contains iron and vitamins. It is distinctively thick, dark and heavy.

Molasses has a natural acidity and for that reason some recommend using bicarbonate of soda (half a teaspoon to 8 oz of molasses) in order to counteract the acidity.

Molasses is great in gingerbreads! It is also good in fruit cakes.

You can store it for about a year and it is generally easy to find in most supermarkets.

Black Treacle

Black treacle is derived from sugar refining and it is a man made product. If you prefer a slightly sweeter taste in your baking or sweet dishes, use black treacle rather than molasses. It is not so bitter and thick as molasses.

Well, that's the round up of the five most commonly used syrups. Start experimenting the next time you start baking or preparing a sweet dish and instead of reaching for the sugar, see how you can start cooking with syrup.

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