Cooking With Syrup: A Guide

Cooking with syrup makes for a good alternative to just 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.

Golden syrup is most often used in baking or when preparing sweet dishes although it has to be said some even like to spread it on a piece of toast or on a tea cake!

Here are some examples using golden syrup in sweets and desserts:

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 derived from sweetcorn. It is not so flavorfull as golden syrup and it is a little thinner but (especially in the USA) it can be used just the same as golden syrup.

As it is considerably cheaper than maple syrup, many like to use it on pancakes.

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.

What are the uses of maple syrup? Pancake and waffles obviously, but also some like it poured over ice cream and even on top of 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 not as bitter or as thick as molasses and some prefer to use it as it gives a slightly sweeter taste in their cooking. It comes from the sugar refining process, and is man made.

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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