One of the properties that both molasses and corn syrup share is their resistance to crystallization. True, in rare cases molasses has been known to crystallize, though I’m betting it wasn’t blackstrap molasses that did it. There are simply too many long-chain sugars (not to mention all the other gunk) in blackstrap molasses to allow […]
READ ONThe most recent post on sorghum syrup made me realize something important: in spite of all the jabbering I’ve been doing about molasses and table sugar, I haven’t written a thing about how either one are made. It’s a slightly complex process, yet here it is in a nutshell: Sugar has of course traditionally been […]
READ ONLike this week’s bread, ciabatta, pecan pie is a baked good without much of a pedigree. There are no known recipes for pecan pie that date back further than 1925. The reason for this is fairly straightforward: corn syrup, one of pecan pie’s primary ingredients, wasn’t in common use before that time. Though corn syrup […]
READ ONIf you really do want to decrease your total sugar intake you could go for a sweetener that really does have less sugar in it. Honey is one option, since it’s about 15% water. It’s also up to 50% fructose, which means you’re getting a lot more sweetness bang-for-the-buck than you get with something like […]
READ ONOh you never would believe where those hermit cookies come from… They’re made mostly by New Englanders these days. That is, the people of Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine…New Hampshire, and, oh…come on now…uh…Rhode Island! That’s it. As a flatlander, I always had trouble with those little states on grade school geography tests. Things clearly aren’t […]
READ ONThe corn bread recipe I posted this morning reveals me as a true Northerner. Why? Because there’s sugar in it. No self-respecteding Southerner would ever admit to putting sugar in his corn bread, something I’m going to have to work on if I’m to continue living here (the admitting I mean). What can I say, […]
READ ONSo, we know that the early history of chemical leavening was defined by a search for non-poisonous gas-producing alkalines to combine with non-poisonous acids to produce bubbles. It wasn’t easy. There are hardly any edible alkalines in our collective pantry to begin with. In fact these days there are only two: egg whites and baking […]
READ ONThe main thing that differentiates a biscuit from a cracker is its ability to rise. And of course that doesn’t happen by itself. It takes a little chemical mojo, and in our case that mojo comes from baking powder. As I mentioned in one of last week’s posts, baking powder was the invention of one […]
READ ONThen again, with a bit of distance on the subject, you can kind of see where the Brits are coming from on this whole naming thing. Take a small, disk-shaped piece of flour-and-water dough, bake it, and you have a cracker. Add a little fat and leavening and it’s a biscuit (an American biscuit, that […]
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