Substituting glucose syrup with corn syrup

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Is there actually a ratio commonly used for replacing glucose with corn syrup? From my understanding, while glucose syrup is a bit of a generic umbrella term that corn syrup technically falls under, commercially glucose syrup is a product that contains less water, is thicker, and is less sweet than corn syrup, and also corn syrup contains fructose while glucose syrup is of course 100% glucose.

However, I've seen all sorts of different ratios recommended for substituting one for the other. In some recipes, especially where the glucose/corn syrup is just a small component, it probably doesn't really matter, but I'm asking more for situations where the ingredient plays a larger role. Some say just straight up substitute 1:1, while I've seen another source say substitute 1:1, but make up for the difference in moisture. But reading Christina Tosi's Momofuku Milk Bar, she says to substitute half the amount of corn syrup for glucose by volume, where she uses 1 cup glucose = 400g and 1 cup corn syrup = 300g. So for 200g (1/2 cup) glucose, the recommended substitution is 75g (1/4 cup) corn syrup. This is a huge difference versus the 1:1 substitution that I see commonly recommended. Is anyone with more experience able to weigh in?
 
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@Cahoot


Glucose is not an umbrella term. Glucose is a monosaccharide, one of two molecules that make up sucrose.





Glucose and corn syrup are invert sugars. And to understand invert sugars you need to first understand them in the context of sucrose.



Sucrose, which is granulated sugar or table sugar is a disaccharide. A disaccharide is a molecule that contains two monosaccharides: glucose and fructose.



So sucrose is one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule (50% glucose and 50% fructose)



Sucrose has a relative sweetness of 100.



All other sweeteners are based on the relative sweetness of sucrose.



But when you separate the disaccharide into individual molecules the sweetness levels are not the same.
  • Glucose relatives sweetness is 70
  • Fructose relative sweetness is 120

Water and heat are used to separate the sucrosedisaccharide. The process is referred to as hydrolysis (hydro = water; lysis = to breakdown).
When the molecules are separated the sugar then becomes an invert sugar.

Corn syrup, trimoline (simple syrup), golden syrup, molasses, sorghum syrup, barley syrup, Rice syrup, and maple syrup are just a few examples of invert sugars.

Corn syrup is unique in that manufacturers add more fructose. Depending on the intended application corn syrup can have anywhere from 20% to 98% fructose.



When you are looking at substitutions what you have to go back to relative sweetness.
Remember sucrose or table sugar is the standard in which all sweeteners are compared to.

  • Glucose and fructose are both sweeter than sucrose.
  • Glucose relative sweetness is 70
  • Fructose relative sweetness is 120
  • Corn syrup is a combination of glucose and fructose.
  • Corn syrup is unique in that fructose can be added in higher concentrations, up to 98%.
So when substituting corn syrup for glucose you really have to taste the corn syrup and know how sweet it compared to the sugar and the glucose.


As a general guideline substitute .75 corn syrup for sucrose.


If a recipe calls for 200 g granulated sugar, substitute 150 ml corn syrup.


But 75% was a guideline that was established prior to the backlash against high fructose corn syrup. Some manufacturers of retail corn syrup have reduced the amount of fructose in their products. So the relative sweetness is reduced. So home bakers have to experiment with these reformulationsto find out what works in their recipes.


Commercially produced glucose syrup is usually made from corn. Although they can be made from other products such as wheat or barley. The invert syrups made from barley are usually labeled as such.


Since it’s just the glucose molecule, it contains less water than the corn syrup. They are preferred by pastry chefs because of the lower water content. And many will substitute glucose for corn syrup 1:1; since it is less sweet and contains less water it is not a problem.


But getting back to the water content of invert sugars, that’s something you need to pay attention to as it will affect your baked goods.


If your recipe is formulated with the invert sugar, you don’t need to worry about it.
If you’re making substitutions in a recipe that is purely granulated sugar and brown sugars then you need to make adjustments to account for the affects of the invert sugar due to the water.

Invert sugars increase hydration in baked goods. So if adding an invert sugar to a recipe that was not formulated with an invert sugar, it’s going to change the texture.
If you use an Invert sugar in a cake batter, reduce the liquid in the cake by 25% for every 200 ml of invert sugar.

In cookies you will need to find a balance between invert sugars and granulated and brown sugars. Too much invert sugar and your cookie will literally fall apart. If you hit the right balance you’ll get a nice crisp edge with a soft chewy center.

Invert sugars are used to increase shelflife, create texture, and add flavor. but it takes a little bit of practice to work them into your recipes.
 
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@Cahoot


Glucose is not an umbrella term. Glucose is a monosaccharide, one of two molecules that make up sucrose.





Glucose and corn syrup are invert sugars. And to understand invert sugars you need to first understand them in the context of sucrose.



Sucrose, which is granulated sugar or table sugar is a disaccharide. A disaccharide is a molecule that contains two monosaccharides: glucose and fructose.



So sucrose is one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule (50% glucose and 50% fructose)



Sucrose has a relative sweetness of 100.



All other sweeteners are based on the relative sweetness of sucrose.



But when you separate the disaccharide into individual molecules the sweetness levels are not the same.
  • Glucose relatives sweetness is 70
  • Fructose relative sweetness is 120

Water and heat are used to separate the sucrosedisaccharide. The process is referred to as hydrolysis (hydro = water; lysis = to breakdown).
When the molecules are separated the sugar then becomes an invert sugar.

Corn syrup, trimoline (simple syrup), golden syrup, molasses, sorghum syrup, barley syrup, Rice syrup, and maple syrup are just a few examples of invert sugars.

Corn syrup is unique in that manufacturers add more fructose. Depending on the intended application corn syrup can have anywhere from 20% to 98% fructose.



When you are looking at substitutions what you have to go back to relative sweetness.
Remember sucrose or table sugar is the standard in which all sweeteners are compared to.

  • Glucose and fructose are both sweeter than sucrose.
  • Glucose relative sweetness is 70
  • Fructose relative sweetness is 120
  • Corn syrup is a combination of glucose and fructose.
  • Corn syrup is unique in that fructose can be added in higher concentrations, up to 98%.
So when substituting corn syrup for glucose you really have to taste the corn syrup and know how sweet it compared to the sugar and the glucose.


As a general guideline substitute .75 corn syrup for sucrose.


If a recipe calls for 200 g granulated sugar, substitute 150 ml corn syrup.


But 75% was a guideline that was established prior to the backlash against high fructose corn syrup. Some manufacturers of retail corn syrup have reduced the amount of fructose in their products. So the relative sweetness is reduced. So home bakers have to experiment with these reformulationsto find out what works in their recipes.


Commercially produced glucose syrup is usually made from corn. Although they can be made from other products such as wheat or barley. The invert syrups made from barley are usually labeled as such.


Since it’s just the glucose molecule, it contains less water than the corn syrup. They are preferred by pastry chefs because of the lower water content. And many will substitute glucose for corn syrup 1:1; since it is less sweet and contains less water it is not a problem.


But getting back to the water content of invert sugars, that’s something you need to pay attention to as it will affect your baked goods.


If your recipe is formulated with the invert sugar, you don’t need to worry about it.
If you’re making substitutions in a recipe that is purely granulated sugar and brown sugars then you need to make adjustments to account for the affects of the invert sugar due to the water.

Invert sugars increase hydration in baked goods. So if adding an invert sugar to a recipe that was not formulated with an invert sugar, it’s going to change the texture.
If you use an Invert sugar in a cake batter, reduce the liquid in the cake by 25% for every 200 ml of invert sugar.

In cookies you will need to find a balance between invert sugars and granulated and brown sugars. Too much invert sugar and your cookie will literally fall apart. If you hit the right balance you’ll get a nice crisp edge with a soft chewy center.

Invert sugars are used to increase shelflife, create texture, and add flavor. but it takes a little bit of practice to work them into your recipes.
That was a very detailed write up, thank you for the information. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my original post, but when I said umbrella term, I wasn't referring to the sugar molecule glucose, but rather "glucose syrup" the product, since there's no set definition on what products it's derived from (as you've touched on). The sources I've read state that because of this, corn syrup is technically just a type of glucose syrup, but I'm also not sure how that works since corn syrup usually contains fructose in addition to glucose, which I'd figure would disqualify it from being a glucose syrup? However at that point it's more just semantics and getting a bit off topic haha.

When I made the post it was originally just for using corn syrup in place of glucose syrup since glucose syrup is of course mainly sold for commercial use and not home use, while I'll usually always have corn syrup on hand. So the substitution would be for recipes already formulated for an invert sugar. If it's any helpful, I can't find the exact composition of the corn syrup that I use, but it's ingredients list is:
- GLUCOSE, GLUCOSE FRUCTOSE, WATER, SALT, VANILLIN.
So I know that the concentration of glucose is at least higher than fructose. If I understand your post correctly, the main differences (and hence considerations for substitutions) between glucose syrup and corn syrup are the:
  1. Sweetness, as corn syrup will be sweeter than glucose syrup because of the fructose
  2. Water content, as corn syrup contains more water than glucose syrup
What interests me is the substitution ratio that's recommended by Christina Tosi, where she recommends using only half the amount of corn syrup by volume, which is around 37.5% by weight. That's a huge difference from a 1:1 substitution, and I honestly wouldn't think that the difference in sweetness and moisture levels between the two syrups are big enough to warrant just a drastic substitution.

But the points that you brought up about substituting in an invert sugar for a recipe that's only formulated for solid sugars are pretty interesting too. I noticed in that textbooks that I have, for their cookies sections they mention invert sugars as a major contributing factor to increasing softness in cookies due to being hygroscopic. For most American-style cookies, people often cite "soft and chewy" as the ideal goal, but I almost never actually see invert sugars being used in recipes. From the recipes I've seen, I've only seen Rose Levy Beranbaum use corn syrup for her chocolate chip cookies, and Christina Tosi uses glucose for her peanut butter cookies. It's an idea I'll have to try out - a problem with peanut butter cookies (including when I last made them) are being too dry and crumbly, and so far the ideas I've come up with are:
  • Finding a recipe with more eggs for more moisture
  • Using an invert sugar for the reasons mentioned
  • Longer mixing of the flour to develop more gluten and hence more chewiness.
 
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@Cahoot



Interesting, the corn syrup you use is formulated to bring the sweetness down, not up. So I’m wondering if it’s formulated specifically for a particular use. Do you buy it from the retail store or is it from restaurant supply?

Nearly all of the glucose syrup on the market is going to be made from corn. So I don’t think you have to worry about the base.

Regarding Tosi, I don’t understand her use of volume. Volume as a measurement makes no sense to the baking world. And American home bakers use of volume are outliers. Professional pastry chefs should be ashamed for perpetuating the use of volume measurement because they know better
and in fact use weight measurements in their professional work.

You’re right it is a significant difference in volume. and that difference translates into a difference in ratios of sugar to the other ingredients. And that will effect yield since it affects the overall volume. It will also effect texture, rise, and flavor.

When you use invert sugars in baking you only replace a small
percentage of the granulated sugar with some invert sugar.
If you use all invert sugar your baked would not hold together. All sugar is hygroscopic. As such, all sugars are tenderizers. But invert sugar also contains water. So the increased hydration would cause your baked good to completely crumble.

Pastry chefs use invert sugar all the time, mainly trimoline and glucose.

You can make your own trimoline. Do not use sugar beet sugar. Sugar beet sugar will not give you the same performance out of it. Sugar beet sugar is so inferior it does not caramelize. They cannot even make brown sugar from sugar beet sugar because the molasses is so inferior. They have to use the molasses from cane sugar to make The sugarbeet sugar into brown sugar. Pastry chefs won’t use sugarbeet sugar because it’s so inferior.

Not to mention that all sugar beet sugar is GMO. At least in the United States it is.

A friend of mine loves peanut butter cookies. A few years ago I developed a peanut butter cookie recipe for him. I use an invert sugar in that recipe. It’s a small amount but it creates a nice bite. If you want I send you the recipe. I also use invert sugar in my chocolate chip cookie. But I don’t give out that recipe since that’s developed for a business project. But I will tell you on average you use about 15% invert sugar in a cookie recipe.

Flour is 100%
Never ever overmix to develop a lot of gluten in your cookie.

Egg should be 33% – 35% weight of flour for drop cookies. And I always decide on a specific amount of egg for my recipes. I don’t develop my recipes for one egg or two eggs.

It’s unfortunate that you don’t have access to a lot of flours. 11%-12% protein is good for drop cookies. That’s the peanut butter cookie, chocolate chip cookie, oatmeal cookie, etc.

You can mix a pastry flour with your stronger 13% flour 50-50 and probably get a good result.






http://chefeddy.com/2009/11/invert-sugar/

Just an aside I don’t know if I mentioned this to you before but there are several big fat lies about baking out there.

The number 1 big fat lie is creaming butter at room temperature. That’s a big fat lie. They don’t teach you to cream butter at room temperature in any culinary school. If you go into any bakery and you try to cream butter at room temperature the butter is going to turn to liquid. Friction causes heat. Beat room temperature butter in a commercial mixer and it will melt. Butter needs to be cold to be creamed. They teach 65°F. I’ve been creaming butter right out of the refrigerator for 20 yrs. You have to know what to look for when you’re creaming butter and sugar. Creaming butter and sugar is mechanical leavening. It’s not about mixing sugar into butter. See Stella Parks article for a full explanation.


https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/cookie-science-creaming-butter-sugar.html
 
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these are the chocolate chip cookie recipes I’ve developed.
Cookies with invert sugar’s also have regular granulated and brown sugar is in them


invert sugar chocolate chip walnut
A32DDB77-C476-4739-B0EE-FF609105B679.jpeg





Invert sugar brown butter chocolate chip
418E885A-BC88-4041-B011-A3B3BD4F3B3A.jpeg


Standard chocolate chip
4BBEC2D4-CE0B-47BB-88FE-6785BE3A92D9.jpeg
 
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@Norcalbaker59

That corn syrup is just the common one found in grocery stores here, and it seems to be the main brand of corn syrup found in Canada. The name is Crown Lily in case you're curious.

To be fair to Christina Tosi, she actually emphasizes the importance of a scale in her cookbok, and all recipes do actually have the metric measurements listed first, with the volume measurement in brackets after. The "freedom measurements", as she calls them, are presumably only included because the publisher requires that, since most Americans still use volume.

The trimoline recipe link is very helpful, thank you for it. It's been bookmarked now! I didn't know that it was so easy to make it myself. And it would also be cheaper than corn syrup. I ha. ven't noticed it being used in many recipes that I've seen so far (probably unsurprising since the recipes I use are for home and not professional settings), but I've noticed it's in a few formulas in Michel Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry, especially for cakes. Fortunately almost all sugar produced here is made from cane sugar, not sugar beets. There's only one refinery in the country that makes it from sugar beets.

If you don't mind posting the peanut butter cookie recipe, I'd love to see it! I've had great results in the past from your pie dough and pate a choux recipes, so I've no doubt they will also be great.

While we're on the topic of sugars and cookies, I came across this interesting line from an article here. The specific line is:

"Sweeteners can make a cookie crisp or soft. Cookies made with sugars that are high in sucrose (granulated sugar and maple syrup) or glucose (corn syrup) tend to stay crisp. Sweeteners high in fructose, such as honey, act differently. Fructose is hygroscopic (meaning it absorbs water from the air), so cookies made with a lot of honey get soft upon standing."

Aren't all sugars (fructose, glucose, and sucrose) hygroscopic? I know fructose is more hygroscopic than glucose, but glucose and sucrose are still hygroscopic nonetheless. Maybe I misunderstood the writer, and they're only referring to relative crispness/softness, i.e. if you want a crisp cookie, then use sucrose or glucose as the sweetener and not fructose. The only way I know of sugars causing crispness in cookies is if the formula contains a very large amount of sugar, in which case the sugar may recrystallize during longer baking processes.

I actually knew about the creaming temperature for butter, and I've read that Stella Parks article before. I've learned lots of neat things from her! Before using a hand mixer, creaming cold butter still wasn't really feasible since I'd just get chunks of butter flying everywhere out of the bowl, but with a stand mixer now it's a snap. I've just been creaming butter straight out of the fridge now. I wanted to clarify something about this topic though. For cookies, wouldn't there would be some instances where you don't want to "properly" cream, i.e. beat the butter fully? The proper creaming just adds more mechanical leavening and creates lighter cookies, but some cookies you may want more dense. I figured this is the same concept as when people use melted butter in a recipe instead of creaming the butter. Of course, it all depends on the specific formulation of the recipe and what your goal is.

And those are beautiful pictures of cookies you posted. It was 10 in the morning when I first saw your post, and I don't normally eat until 1-2pm nowadays, but that first picture literally had me salivating already! The second picture of the invert sugar + brown butter cookie is also noticeably darker than the third picture of the standard cookie (harder to tell with the first picture) - I assume that's because of the increased browning effect of the invert sugar?
 
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If you want a crispy cookie, use granulated sugar. It will also produce a flatter cookie.



The ratio of egg to flour will inhibit the spread of a Cookie, but egg also adds fat and water.



So when you’re adding fat and water vis egg you will inhibit the spread, but you also start to change the texture. So that crispy cookie will gradually begin to change as well. The more egg in the dough, the more cake like texture. Stella Parks wrote an excellent piece on cookies and eggs. Link below.



You have to keep in mind spread and texture is not just about the sugar, but starch gelatinization. And that has to do with the wheat variety, the protein content, the water in the dough, and baking temperature. So there’s a lot of other factors that go into this besides the sugar.



Shirley Corriher is a bio chemist by training. And she’s brilliant; some years ago she changed her focus to cooking and then to baking.



I really like Shirley Corriher, but I don’t think she wrote a very well researched article here. I didn’t read the article in it’s entirety, I only focused on the section on sugar since that’s what you and I discussing here.



Corriher writes corn syrup is mainly glucose. This is incorrect. It depends on how the manufacture formulated the corn syrup. As I mentioned manufactures enrich corn syrup with fructose, up to 98% fructose. That’s why’re called “high fructose corn syrup.”



She’s also incorrect that cookies made with maple syrup will be crisp. Corriher mentions it’s high in sucrose.



Sucrose is a disaccharide; the prefix “di” means “two”; saccharide is the chemistry term for sugar.



So sucrose is:

  • disaccharide
  • A disaccharide means
    • TWO sugars, glucose AND fructose.


Corriher ignores the water in the maple syrup. And there is significant water and maple syrup.



Maple syrup is an invert sugar. When maple syrup is sapped from the tree it’s about 98% water, 2% sugar. It’s then boiled to a concentration of approximately 33% - 34% water and 67% sugar. With 33% water from the maple syrup, plus water from the egg white, and water from the butter the cookie will be soft. The maple syrup at 33% - 34% water will not going to absorb water the way granulated sugar will.



Granulated sugar contains no water. As soon as the granulated sugar comes in contact with the egg and butter in the dough it begins to absorb the free water. During baking some of this water gets released and evaporates. This creates both spread and crisp in a cookie. This doesn’t happen when you use maple syrup because maple syrup is not going to absorb water the same way as granulated sugar.



We actually use invert sugar more than you realize. We just do it in the form of brown sugar, molasses and honey.



Brown sugar is mixed with an invert sugar, molasses. So that bit of invert sugar creates a soft cookie with less spread and a slight crisp edge.



There’s so many types of glucose syrups both in retail and commercial use (glucose syrup 68DE, isomerised glucose a type of high fructose corn syrup). It’s impossible to know the composition of any glucose or corn syrup without getting the specification from the manufacture.



All sugars are hygroscopic. But food chemistry is really complicated.



As I mentioned they make a variety of glucose syrups and corn syrups.



They actually change glucose to fructose to make some types of corn syrup.



They do this by enzyme glucose isomerase—I’m nerdy and I’m from a family of nerds but that is way above my nerdy pay grade.

But you want to give it a look see link below for an explanation. Also click on “Application in industry”. you’ll see high fructose corn syrup is listed as one of its uses. I’m not trying to disrespect Shirley Corriher. It’s just the food industry is very complex and so much happens in the chemistry food production even a chemist like Corriher isn’t aware of what happens to our food.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylose_isomerase



Keep in mind that flour is also hygroscopic. So it is also competing for the free water in the batter and dough.



Also the different sugars each have different chemical structure. So they will perform slightly different. Just because they are invert sugars don’t mean they all perform the same. Honey is going to perform a little differently than golden syrup.



And the different water levels in each invert sugar will affect how gluten develops and starch gelatinization happens in the flour.



So just keep these things in mind.



Just an aside there is granulated maple sugar. It’s really very lovely sugar too. Very expensive. But you can make your own. Now full disclosure I’ve never baked with maple sugar in the dough given the price of it. I’ve only used it to top cookies. so I cannot say first hand how it actually bakes in a cookie dough. I’ve hesitated to make my own maple sugar because I tend to purchase very expensive maple syrup. The thought of botching a batch of maple sugar is unbearable to me. So I would rather purchase maple sugar.



I don’t follow Tosi. I don’t understand her food philosophy. Desserts of course are not healthy. But to deliberately saturate milk and cream with the worst possible source of sugar and starch doesn’t make sense to me.



I am certainly open to innovation, but I see no

value in soaking milk and cream in 6 cups of Kellogg’s cornflakes before making panna cotta. Or dumping jars of food colored jimmies into cake batter. I made the sprinkle cupcakes once for my niece. She refused to eat them. The jimmies inside made for a spectacular looking cupcake but it changes the taste. I’m not one for trends to begin with, and that really was my lesson not to follow trends.



I understand economics are such bakers must choose between butter or shortening. But I don’t understand why a baker would deliberately incorporate the use of poor quality ingredients into pastry when it’s not necessary.



https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/cookie-science-how-do-eggs-affect-my-cookies.html
 
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OK I’m going to test my peanut butter cookie recipe before I send it to you. I haven’t made it in several years so I want to make sure it still works before I send it to you.

so I’ll do that this weekend.

The difference color on my chocolate chip cookies is a result of the sugars but for a different reason than you might think

The invert sugar creates a softer dough And requires a longer bake time to set.

These are also large cookies 75 g per and 80 g dough per cookie A standard homemade chocolate chip cookie is about 35g to 50g dough. So the bake time is about 16 minutes
 
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@Norcalbaker59

That was a nice read from the article by Stella Parks. I really liked the end where she points out how egg yolks and whites actually have opposite effects in a cookie formula where the butter is melted and the eggs are whipped first. It's something you also emphasize, how you can't just look at ingredients in a vacuum, and you gotta also consider everything else in the recipe such as the mixing method.

And you're very right in that there are so many other factors that affect spread and texture. There's honestly a lot going on in baking and I probably often make too many simplifying assumptions. And as shown even an expert like Shirley Corriher can make mistakes. Just gotta become get more experienced to become more familiar with the mechanics behind baking.

However, something neat I experienced reading the Wikipedia article you linked, in the "Application in industry" section, the first step in producing HFCS is degradation of starch using alpha-amylase. If I'm correct, that's the same amylase that's responsible for breaking down starches in pastry cream, and why the cream has to be brought to a boil to deactivate the enzyme - I am learning things at least!

Funny you mentioned maple sugar, since we do actually have a container of it at my parent's house. I've used it to make maple sugar pie and maple pastry cream - great way to cram more maple flavour in things without adding the extra water from maple sugar. Since it's very expensive and I knew maple syrup is sweeter than granulated sugar, I was conservative with the amounts I used. In a dough, I'd imagine it'd function similarly to brown sugar due to the invert sugar components, but of course I may be wrong about that.

I also agree that some of Tosi's recipes are a bit too much. There are some specific recipes that I'm interested in, but many of them also just seem super excessive. Not to knock against her, since she's obviously a very talented and successful pastry chef, just different tastes.

I don't want to trouble or inconvenience you with the recipe - don't feel obligated to go out of your way for it!
 
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@Norcalbaker59

That was a nice read from the article by Stella Parks. I really liked the end where she points out how egg yolks and whites actually have opposite effects in a cookie formula where the butter is melted and the eggs are whipped first. It's something you also emphasize, how you can't just look at ingredients in a vacuum, and you gotta also consider everything else in the recipe such as the mixing method.

And you're very right in that there are so many other factors that affect spread and texture. There's honestly a lot going on in baking and I probably often make too many simplifying assumptions. And as shown even an expert like Shirley Corriher can make mistakes. Just gotta become get more experienced to become more familiar with the mechanics behind baking.

However, something neat I experienced reading the Wikipedia article you linked, in the "Application in industry" section, the first step in producing HFCS is degradation of starch using alpha-amylase. If I'm correct, that's the same amylase that's responsible for breaking down starches in pastry cream, and why the cream has to be brought to a boil to deactivate the enzyme - I am learning things at least!

Funny you mentioned maple sugar, since we do actually have a container of it at my parent's house. I've used it to make maple sugar pie and maple pastry cream - great way to cram more maple flavour in things without adding the extra water from maple sugar. Since it's very expensive and I knew maple syrup is sweeter than granulated sugar, I was conservative with the amounts I used. In a dough, I'd imagine it'd function similarly to brown sugar due to the invert sugar components, but of course I may be wrong about that.

I also agree that some of Tosi's recipes are a bit too much. There are some specific recipes that I'm interested in, but many of them also just seem super excessive. Not to knock against her, since she's obviously a very talented and successful pastry chef, just different tastes.

I don't want to trouble or inconvenience you with the recipe - don't feel obligated to go out of your way for it!


Stella Parks is one of the best pastry chefs out there. Because she knows the science AND she is able to articulate it so well, she’s able to help people successfully bake. I have total respect for Stella Parks.



Where Shirley Corriher is a very solid scientist, she’s not a baker by training. So some of her recipes really come up short because she doesn’t fully understand how The ingredients interact. She understands the science because she’s a chemist she just doesn’t necessarily understand the ingredients from a baker’s perspective. But she’s solid as a scientist and I do like her.



Yay! yes alpha-amylase the enzymatic process used to hydrolysis the starch in making corn syrup. It’s funny because all of the science I learned was from human biology and medical terminology because I thought I was going to go in to the medical field. (I learned real quick I didn’t have the stomach for it.). As I learned more baking science I was fascinated to discover that the same science terminology applied to food science.



That’s the beauty about science. It’s design to be universal. So every discipline and in every language alpha-amylase will have the same definition. my siblings are nurses, my cousins are doctors, my niece is a dietitian, I am a baker. for all of us amylase means same thing, An enzyme that breaks down a food starch. But for the doctors, nurses, and the dietitian it’s applied in a different way than it is for me the baker.



Now that we’ve been discussing maple sugar I’m really curious about baking with it in the dough. Maybe I’ll just have to try to make my own and bake with it. There’s a number of DIY videos online. I suppose I could buy some cheaper maple syrup. Supposedly you can reconstitute the sugar back into maple syrup. And now I’m like really curious as to what the flavor is like. The stuff is really expensive. When I buy maple sugar I usually buy a coarse decorating sugar. That way at least you can taste it on the cookie.



Tosi completed a good culinary program. There’s nothing wrong with being innovative. I just take issue with the fact that she deliberately destroys the quality of the milk and cream to add flavor.



Plus this whole notion that it’s all about nostalgia is a bunch of BS. All marketing.



Her milk bar products are crap,. They are cloying sweet, overpriced, made with poor quality to run of the mill at best ingredients. People are not buying fine pastry by any stretch of the imagination. And it’s all a gimmick. The world didn’t suddenly become nostalgic for drinking the milk at the bottom of their cereal bowl. They created the products, then told customers it was a throwback of their memory of drinking the milk from their cereal bowl. And people bought that crap hook line and sinker.



OK then on the peanut butter cookie recipe I’ll wait until I go to visit my brother. He is supposed to take delivery of some Japanese green tea for me. It should happen sometime this next week. So when the tea arrives i’ll bake the cookies to take to him since I can’t eat gluten anyway.



Sorry for all the typos in my post. I just had new lenses put in my frameless glasses. But the lab screwed them up and the nose piece broke. I have a second pair of glasses at the Ophthalmologist. But her Optometrist retired. The new one is just horrible. She doesn’t practice basic hygiene. When my first pair of glasses came in I tried them on. Everything was blurred out. I take them off take a look at the lenses. I handed them to her and said, “These things are so filthy I can’t see through them. You need to clean these so I can see through them.” I do not want that woman touching my face with all this COVID-19 going around. I am without glasses. So I use the dictation feature on my iPhone. Of course it writes whatever it wants, including gobbledygook words that don’t even exist. Then I have to go back and try to edit it to correct mistakes. And I miss half of them.
 
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@Norcalbaker59
It's a pretty cool feeling when knowledge you learn in one field or topic transfers over to another field, eh? Seeing your and your family's backgrounds, it's less surprising now how much you know (and emphasize the importance of) food science.

I actually didn't know you could make maple sugar at home before, but I may try it out sometime in the future. I imagine that maple products are much less prevalent in California than up here in Canada, but even then maple sugar isn't a particularly common products. I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen it in regular grocery stores. There's a maple brown sugar recipe I've bookmarked for a while, and I'm tempted to give it a try, substituting some of the brown sugar 1:1 with maple sugar and seeing how that goes.

I'm not surprised how popular the Milk Bar products have gotten. It seems to just be the trend now with over-the-top desserts. We've all seen those layer cakes topped with mountains of candy, or those ridiculous milkshakes where the entire cup is covered in frosting and candy, and the shake is topped with entire slices of cheesecake, donuts, etc.

It's a shame to hear about your glasses situation! An optometrist who doesn't have clean glasses for clients is a no-go, COVID-19 or no. I don't have a problem understanding anything in your posts though, so that's all good.
 
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@Norcalbaker59
ave gotten. It seems to just be the trend now with over-the-top desserts. We've all seen those layer cakes topped with mountains of candy, or those ridiculous milkshakes where the entire cup is covered in frosting and candy, and the shake is topped with entire slices of cheesecake, donuts, etc.

It's a shame to hear about your glasses situation! An optometrist who doesn't have clean glasses for clients is a no-go, COVID-19 or no. I don't have a problem understanding anything in your posts though, so that's all good.

I noticed decades ago that everything in food trends was an attempt to convert any dish into a candy bar, then it spread to pastry and then coffee and on its goes. If I want a snickers bar I eat a snickers, I don't try to fool myself by sprinkling candied condiments on a salad and convince myself I'm just having a salad.
 
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@Norcalbaker59
It's a pretty cool feeling when knowledge you learn in one field or topic transfers over to another field, eh? Seeing your and your family's backgrounds, it's less surprising now how much you know (and emphasize the importance of) food science.

I actually didn't know you could make maple sugar at home before, but I may try it out sometime in the future. I imagine that maple products are much less prevalent in California than up here in Canada, but even then maple sugar isn't a particularly common products. I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen it in regular grocery stores. There's a maple brown sugar recipe I've bookmarked for a while, and I'm tempted to give it a try, substituting some of the brown sugar 1:1 with maple sugar and seeing how that goes.

I'm not surprised how popular the Milk Bar products have gotten. It seems to just be the trend now with over-the-top desserts. We've all seen those layer cakes topped with mountains of candy, or those ridiculous milkshakes where the entire cup is covered in frosting and candy, and the shake is topped with entire slices of cheesecake, donuts, etc.

It's a shame to hear about your glasses situation! An optometrist who doesn't have clean glasses for clients is a no-go, COVID-19 or no. I don't have a problem understanding anything in your posts though, so that's all good.

I didn’t try maple syrup until I was in my 20s. Only then because I was dating a man who was from Michigan. We ate homemade jams or honey from my grandmother’s beehives on our pancakes. Maple syrup was way too expensive and not readily available in the grocery stores here.

Now it’s readily available, but still expensive. And there’s always a debate as to which maple syrup is the best. Vermont vs Canadian. Single sourced or blended. I just try to purchase organic and from small family farms. It’s always more expensive but I feel better knowing that I am supporting a family business rather than a large corporation.

yeah I come from a family of nerds. I don’t use social media. But with this lockdown I’ve been using Facebook to stay in contact with my family. I discovered that it tracks your off-line activity. So I researched how to disconnect off line tracking. In the process I looked up what they tracked on me. It was fitness, us senatenews, current events, biology, math, science, recipes, desserts, and coffee.

I don’t work professionally as a baker. I’ve had extensive training and I can walk into any bakery and open up their formula binder and make anything out of there. But I don’t work professionally. I only bake as a hobby.

But I am working on a projects with my brother. He’s a nurse by training. But he owns interest in coffee farms in Mexico. He’s also a coffee roaster He and I would like to create a business together since we have skills that would definitely complement each other.
 
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I didn’t try maple syrup until I was in my 20s. Only then because I was dating a man who was from Michigan. We ate homemade jams or honey from my grandmother’s beehives on our pancakes. Maple syrup was way too expensive and not readily available in the grocery stores here.

Now it’s readily available, but still expensive. And there’s always a debate as to which maple syrup is the best. Vermont vs Canadian. Single sourced or blended. I just try to purchase organic and from small family farms. It’s always more expensive but I feel better knowing that I am supporting a family business rather than a large corporation.

yeah I come from a family of nerds. I don’t use social media. But with this lockdown I’ve been using Facebook to stay in contact with my family. I discovered that it tracks your off-line activity. So I researched how to disconnect off line tracking. In the process I looked up what they tracked on me. It was fitness, us senatenews, current events, biology, math, science, recipes, desserts, and coffee.

I don’t work professionally as a baker. I’ve had extensive training and I can walk into any bakery and open up their formula binder and make anything out of there. But I don’t work professionally. I only bake as a hobby.

But I am working on a projects with my brother. He’s a nurse by training. But he owns interest in coffee farms in Mexico. He’s also a coffee roaster He and I would like to create a business together since we have skills that would definitely complement each other.
Can't say I've ever had Vermont maple syrup, butIt would be interesting to try it to see if I can taste a difference. I'll fully admit I don't have the most sophisticated or sensitive taste buds, so they may all just taste like maple syrup to me!

It's a bit concerning how much corporations know about us nowadays isn't it? But with so many products (whether social media, apps, websites, etc.) being free, you gotta remember the saying "If you can't tell what they're selling you, then you are the product", so not surprising how much personal information they've accumulated about all of us now. But you're aware of this and taken steps to prevent some tracking, which is better than 99% of the population.

And I'm genuinely surprised you don't work professionally as a baker. Have you ever had any previous professional experience in the field? I'm just an amateur and may not be the best judge, but it seems that you're still much more knowledgeable about how baking works than the average professional baker or pastry chef.
 
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Can't say I've ever had Vermont maple syrup, butIt would be interesting to try it to see if I can taste a difference. I'll fully admit I don't have the most sophisticated or sensitive taste buds, so they may all just taste like maple syrup to me!

It's a bit concerning how much corporations know about us nowadays isn't it? But with so many products (whether social media, apps, websites, etc.) being free, you gotta remember the saying "If you can't tell what they're selling you, then you are the product", so not surprising how much personal information they've accumulated about all of us now. But you're aware of this and taken steps to prevent some tracking, which is better than 99% of the population.

And I'm genuinely surprised you don't work professionally as a baker. Have you ever had any previous professional experience in the field? I'm just an amateur and may not be the best judge, but it seems that you're still much more knowledgeable about how baking works than the average professional baker or pastry chef.


Personally I don’t think it matters if it’s Canadian or Vermont. It really comes down to the skill of the producer. If you recall maple sap is 98% water and 2% sugar. It is then boiled to a concentration of 33%-34% water and 67% sugar. Maple sap is actually colorless and pretty much flavorless when it’s first tapped from the tree. The link video below explains why the grading system was changed to a uniform international standard, but there’s a shot of a tree being tapped. And you can see the sap is clear.
I learned that maple syrup grades are not about quality, rather they refer to the color of the syrup. Or rather how much light actually penetrates through the maple syrup. Canadians and Americans had different systems to grade maple syrup. Recently they’ve moved towards international standards.

The darker the color the more maple flavor. B grade is richer in flavor, and darker in color than A grade.

I prefer the B grade syrups myself.


A grade is produced in the earlier and mid season. B grade later in the season.


For baking B grade is best because it is richer in flavor. so it stands up better in heat.


I started out with a strong interest in cooking. Initially self-taught and then I started taking a lot of cooking classes. Then baking classes. I then went to Italy for a basic cooking program for amateurs.


I continue to take a lot of classes. Usually every other month or so. I spend a lot of time in commercial kitchens. And I have friends who are pastry chefs, bakers, and cooks. I live in wine country. I live on a property that is used for events. So I’m around wine, food and catering, baking wedding cake industry stuff all the time. Even my friends at the gym all work in the food industry. The gym owner’s DIL is a pastry chef. So they were tasters when I was developing my chocolate chip cookie recipes. The entire county revolves around the wine and food industry.



A family friend who has known our family for 18 years recently said there’s something about our family, when we pick up a hobby we go all in. And she’s right we do.

I bake on a professional level

My brother the nurse, roasts coffee on a professional level and now owns interest in a coffee farm in Mexico

My youngest sister took up knitting. She now spins wool into yarn with a 230 yr old spinning wheel; weaves cloth on a loom; and makes her on dyes from plant material she gathers on walks. I

gave her my sewing machine and now she’s teaching herself to sew now.

My oldest sister bought a fixer-upper arts and craft style home and instead of hiring a contractor, she remodeled the entire house herself.

So my immersion into a baking is in part a dynamic of my family too.

Get drives me crazy that every company out there tracks you. I don’t use social media. For the most part. I’ve never owned a television in my adult life. I really don’t get the worlds obsession with programs like the Kardashians. I was at my brother’s house and my teenage niece was watching that show. I did not see the appeal. But then again I’ve never owned a TV. So I don’t get the appeal of television at all.

I do like the computer and my iPad. But my computer just died on me. It was old, six years so I guess it’s the battery. Rather than replace the battery I think I’ll just buy a new computer. I’m waiting to see what Apple comes up with this year.


https://www.maplesource.com/pure-maple-syrup-grades-explained/
 
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@Norcalbaker59 I figured let's continue our discussion on invert sugars here. I find that the topic of all the different types of sugar syrups is a bit confusing, so wanted to clear up on all the information. My goal is to understand how the properties work in each sugar syrup, and how they can (or can't) be substituted for one another.

I consulted the Paula Figoni text How Baking Works, so a lot of this will be based off of what's written there. So first of all to make sure my understanding's correct (please correct me if any of these statements are false), the properties of invert sugars (e.g. preventing crystallization, extra hygroscopic) come from the fact that sucrose is separated into glucose and fructose. Most sugar syrups are sometimes called invert sugars because they contain some glucose/fructose instead of just sucrose. But formally, the term refers to syrup that contains equal parts glucose and fructose, and Trimoline is a popular brand name.

Here's a table from the book on the composition of syrups. I'll use this as a reference.
1596377058972.png


1) If my understanding's correct, the "Invert, full" syrup is commercially produced invert syrups, e.g. Trimoline. As you mentioned, homemade invert syrup doesn't fully invert it, so it'd be similar to the "Invert, medium" row? From what I've read from other sources, honey is the closest substitute for invert syrup. Comparing its composition to fully inverted syrup, they're pretty similar, so that makes sense.

2) Regarding golden syrup, the text says "Golden syrup contains a moderate amount of invert sugar, so it is essentially a medium invert syrup, one that has not been highly filtered or refined." So it can essentially also be substituted for honey or invert syrup? And for this post, when I talk about substituting things, I mean chemical properties-wise, ignoring the differences in tastes. However, I've also seen people say that corn syrup can be substituted 1:1 with golden syrup. Corn syrup seems to be fairly different from the makeup of honey or invert sugar, so I'm not sure how that works out.

3) One thing I still don't understand very clearly is the difference between corn syrup and glucose syrup. A lot of this research was actually motivated in finding out how I can substitute for glucose, as it's not readily sold for home use in North America. To make things simpler, I won't be talking about HFCS, just the regular stuff available at supermarkets.

From the text: "Glucose is also shorthand for glucose syrup, commonly called corn syrup in the United States (because it is usually derived from cornstarch). To minimize confusion, this text refers to the syrup as glucose corn syrup. While glucose corn syrup does contain a certain amount of the monosaccharide glucose, it generally contains significant amounts of other components as well, so the name is somewhat misleading. Historically, however, glucose corn syrups were manufactured for the glucose they contained, so while misleading, the name is logical." From what I understand, it's saying corn syrup is just the American name for what the rest of the world calls glucose syrup. But I know that the corn syrup we buy in grocery stores here isn't the same thing as the glucose syrup used by pastry chefs or in Europe. What's the deal with that?

From the text: "... all glucose corn syrups contain a certain amount of sugar (primarily glucose and maltose) that sweetens, browns, moistens, and tenderizes." From the table above, none of the glucose syrup rows contain any fructose. The Canadian brand of corn syrup that I mentioned earlier in this thread lists "glucose fructose" as one of its ingredients. The text says "High fructose corn syrup is one of the newer corn syrups. Called glucose-fructose in Canada and isoglucose in the European Union...", so that means the corn syrup I have contains some HFCS? Additionally, it says "Karo light corn syrup is most similar to regular glucose corn syrup, although it also contains fructose, salt, and vanilla for added sweetness and flavor." So Karo corn syrup also contains fructose. Additionally, I know that corn syrup contains more water than glucose syrup.

I think this part of my question has become a bit of a mess. Would it be reasonable to say that corn syrup cannot be substituted for glucose syrup? As I mentioned in my original post in this thread, I've seen all sorts of different ratios recommended when I was researching substituting glucose, and the text itself says that Karo corn syrup is similar to glucose syrup, but there appear to be quite a few differences between them. How would you substitute for glucose syrup in a recipe? Or would you recommend just buying that stuff instead?
 
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@Cahoot

Trimoline is brand name, but it has been used so much that it’s become synonymous with invert sugar. So pastry chefs just say trimoline when they refer to invert sugar because it’s simple and everyone knows what you mean.


An invert sugar by definition is the disaccharide sucrose that has been split into two separate monosaccharides: glucose and fructose. It doesn’t matter what else is present in the solution. And it doesn’t matter if the glucose and fructose is in equal amounts. The only thing that matters is the sucrose disaccharide and its separation.


10189845-2651-4251-8B3C-6BA2D8D6B107.png




I don’t think we come close to inverting much of the sugar at home. But I don’t think it really matters since most commercially produced invert sugars are between 30% - 60% inverted (see links below for typical invert sugars).

https://www.dominospecialtyingredients.com/products/invert-sugars-nulomoline -11


https://www.dominospecialtyingredients.com/products/invert-sugars-type-50


It’s impossible to know how much sugar is inverted when we make it at home. But I am sure it’s now where near a medium invert sugar. Even measuring it in commercial production takes some doing. They use an instrument called a polarimeter. Essentially they look though the sugar solution using light and two filters. One filter is polarized, so when the light shines through the sugar solution, the more sugar molecules that are inverted, the more it blocks the light from passing through the filter. Inversion is considered compete when the sugar solution observed through the polarimeter has the opposite direction of optical rotation of -12.7° (see link below How a polarimeter works). BWT, it is the measurement of the optical rotation that gives invert sugar it’s name.



The fact that homemade invert sugar re-crystalizes in about 3 weeks to a month means it’s not highly inverted sugar. CK Products in the US repackages a lot of commercial products for the home baker. They sell 2 oz bottles of invertase (enzyme) used in commercial production of invert sugar. But I am not sure how to use it.


https://www.ckproducts.com/cake-ingredients-sugars-corn-syrups-invertase-2-oz-76-6502


============

First let me say this, yes, you can absolutely substitute corn syrup for glucose.


Here’s the problem with her table of molecules: there’s no context. She left out the most important element of the discussion: Relative Sweetness.

A discussion about invert sugar molecules without discussing Relative Sweetness Factors makes no sense because there is no context. It’s like talking about all the types of clouds, but not mentioning a word about rain or weather.

So to put things in context and to answer your questions about substitutions and the difference between HFCS and glucose, we have to look at the relative sweetness.

Fructose and glucose have different relative sweetness. Fructose has a higher relative sweetness. But, the operative word is relative sweetness.

You can’t say definitively that there’s a substitution of 1:1 or 1:.25 between this invert sugar and that one because it comes down to relative sweetness.

All sugars are measured against sucrose (granulated table sugar).

Sucrose has a Relative Sweetness of 100.

But sweetness is relative—it changes. I’m sure you saw this coming with the phrase Relative Sweetness. So don’t be surprised if you see charts out there with different factors. The factors will change depending on the percentage of the solution used to measure the relative sweetness factor. It will change with the temperature.

The chart that I posted below was based on a 15% solution.


The type of sugar starch is also very important. Again we’re looking at the molecular structure, amount of solids, and the solution. That’s where the chart from your cookbook would be helpful if it also included a column with relative sweetness factors.

I don’t know specifically about glucose’s range. I do know with HFSC changes in relative sweetness happen at 5°C and 60°C.

At 5°C fructopyranose is dominate. So it has a relative sweetness factor of 140% of sucrose.

At 60°C fructofuranose dominates, so the relative sweetness factor declines to about 79% of sucrose.

In baking, heat is going to happen. So a particular HFCS may have a high relative sweetness factor, but it will lose some of it in the bake.

Keep in mind that glucose is chemically identical to dextrose, and you’ll often see it listed as dextrose not glucose.


When you see corn syrup listed as DE, that stands for Dextrose Equivalent. This does NOT mean it is a dupe for glucose. Rather, it is a measure of the reducing sugars in the syrup. Reducing sugar levels are important because among other things, they react with amino acids to trigger the Maillard reactions that produce both color and aromas.

Depending on the corn syrup being used you’ll see from the chart below that HFCS has a relative sweetness much higher than dextrose (glucose). Retail corn syrup is essentially a HFCS. They can be substituted. The the amount will depend on the relative sweetness.


For commercial baking they make a variety of corn syrups with much lower Relative Sweetness (see link below).

When you substitute one invert sugar syrup for another, you really have to know the relative sweetness. You can’t go by what people say you should or shouldn’t do. You have to know the differences between the products.

There is one caveat. The one time that you really have to check the specs thoroughly is for ice cream. Invert sugars are used in ice cream because changes the freezing temperature of water. But it’s critical that the right invert sugar is used. There’s a ton of cons and only a few pros to sugars in ice cream. So you really need to know the sugar science when making ice cream.



Chart of Relative Sweetness of different invert sugars in a 15% solution. FYI, dextrose is the same as glucose. Keep in mind this is just one chart. I can’t remember, but I think this came from an science book on industrial corn product production methods.



DE acid-converted CSU stands for Dextrose equivalent acid converted corn syrup unmixed. The number in front indicates how sweet the corn syrup is; the higher the number the sweeter the syrup. 42 DE has approximately half the sweetness of sucrose (table sugar); 63 DE is about 70%; 100 DE with is pure dextrose, is only 80% the sweetness of sucrose.


7FD50969-1279-4623-A3B2-8BBE5C7654B5.jpeg


Brix is the measurement system used to measure sucrose in an aqueous solution. Brix is most commonly associated with wine (there’s a restaurant in the Valley here called Brix). But brix is also used in the sugar, maple syrup, honey, and even the beverage industries. Brix is 1 g sucrose to 100 g of solution and represents the solution as a percentage of mass.


These are examples of Domino Brands commercial invert sugars. Dominos owns C&H sugar as well. They are top brands both in retail and commercial food industry in the US. Notice even Domino uses a take on the word trimoline for their invert sugar.


Domino Sugars Nulomoline #11 is a low color high solids Medium Invert Syrup.

- 76.5 Bx

- 40.5% invert (on a dry basis)

Unknown is percentage of sucrose





Domino Sugars Type 50 is a low color high solids Medium invert Syrup.

-76.7 Bx

-50% invert (on a dry basis)

Unknown is percentage of sucrose



These are the refiners (golden) syrups. Even though the sucrose is not listed for Domino’s sugar syrups, I can tell you they have a higher percentage of sucrose than the refiner syrups. But the refiner syrups are invert sugars and perform like sugar syrup invert sugars in baking. A little bit goes a long way when it comes to invert sugars. Just play with them in some cookies and you’ll see what I mean.



Domino Sugar’s B Golden Syrup

- 79.5BX

- 70% Total Sugars

- 36% Sucrose

- 34% Invert



Light Brown Refiners Syrup

- 77.5 Bx

- >30% Sucrose

- <60% Invert



Dark Brown Refiners Syrup

- 75 Bx

- >35% Sucrose

- <48% Invert



Glucose is not called corn syrup in the US. If anything, it will be labelled dextrose. You can get glucose from big box stores like Walmart, Michel’s, and JoAnn’s. Or large tubs from the pastry supply shop. I don’t know where she came up with the notion that glucose is sold as corn syrup here. And I googled for it in Canada as well. Seems it available there too.



Glucose can be made from corn, wheat, or sorghum, while corn is a commonly used starch, it is by no means the exclusive starch. Bakers don’t assume the glucose is corn based. It’s especially important to know the starch source because celiacs cannot eat wheat based glucose; and people with corn allergies cannot eat the corn based glucose. Part of the reason I use cane sugar invert sugars is because I don’t have to worry these issues.





https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00085F7VO/ref=cm_sw_r_oth_api_i_VN8jFbE0RPYD6



http://www.mccalls.ca/Ingredients/SPECIALTY-INGREDIENTS/Glucose-1000-G.html



https://gourmetwarehouse.ca/glucose-syrup-8-5oz/



https://www.bulkbarn.ca/en/products/all/glucose-8-5oz-153800



https://supplies.gusta.ca/products/glucose-syrup
 
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@Norcalbaker59 Wow that was super informative! Interesting to know the % inverted sugars in commercial invert sugars and homemade stuff, but probably won't be worrying much about those details for now.

I didn't know that relative sweetness changed with the concentration of the solutions and the temperature. That sure makes finding ratios for substitutes much more complicated; I'm guessing that's why there aren't any universal guidelines out there for substitutions between invert sugars.

As I'm still in school, I'm constantly moving between places for school, co-op, or going back home, so that's why I try to limit the ingredients that I buy if I may not be able to use them up in a couple months, as otherwise they'd have to be thrown out or I'd need to move them with me. But for invert sugars (glucose being what I'm looking at) the safe bet appears to be just getting it for recipes where it's used in more than just a small amount. Thanks for all the Canadian links at the end of your post, I didn't even know that it was that commonly found in stores here.
 
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@Norcalbaker59 Wow that was super informative! Interesting to know the % inverted sugars in commercial invert sugars and homemade stuff, but probably won't be worrying much about those details for now.

I didn't know that relative sweetness changed with the concentration of the solutions and the temperature. That sure makes finding ratios for substitutes much more complicated; I'm guessing that's why there aren't any universal guidelines out there for substitutions between invert sugars.

As I'm still in school, I'm constantly moving between places for school, co-op, or going back home, so that's why I try to limit the ingredients that I buy if I may not be able to use them up in a couple months, as otherwise they'd have to be thrown out or I'd need to move them with me. But for invert sugars (glucose being what I'm looking at) the safe bet appears to be just getting it for recipes where it's used in more than just a small amount. Thanks for all the Canadian links at the end of your post, I didn't even know that it was that commonly found in stores here.

@Cahoot,

I think I edited my response twice before posting because I was worried it was too nerdy.:D Sugar chemistry is fascinating. BTW, Not all cane sugar is vegan. So if you bake for any vegan friends you’ll have to look for cane sugar specifically labeled vegan. Some manufacturers use bone char filters to remove all traces of color in the sugar

For all the moving around you do, making your own invert sugar is probably your best solution. Most recipes Instruct you to heat the water solution to boiling. But do you really need to heat the solution above boiling to 114°C (237°F). Then simmer above 70°C (160°F) but below 100°C (212°F) for 5 - 7 minutes.

2 parts sugar to 1 part water and a pinch of cream of tartar. Just remember to wash down the sides of the sauce pan so there’s no sugar crystals. And do not stir once you begin to heat v
 
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I was just mixing up a batch of peanut butter cookies for Bren. I found that my brand new tin of Lyles golden syrup leaked in shipping. There was mold inside. So I added corn syrup to this batch of cookie dough. We’ll see how it turns out; I’ve never use corn syrup in these cookies before.

not having anymore Lyle’s prompted me to go online to see if I could purchase some Lyle’s in a bottle. I thought it was interesting that the label on their bottle actually states invert sugar.

C2B1C0FF-C987-4C30-8146-8E42A43E26F5.png
 

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