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Me and my girlfriend (we both really, really like cooking) do that with a lot of recipes that involve sugar. It does affect the texture, but I think it often im
by notalaser 10y ago
Me and my girlfriend (we both really, really like cooking) do that with a lot of recipes that involve sugar. It does affect the texture, but I think it often improves the taste.
There are things that ought to be sugary (like thick syrups used for preserving), but most pastries, jams, jellies and deserts in general need surprisingly less sugar than recent cookbooks would imply. Adding just enough sugar to take the edge off of bitterness or sourness ends up being more rewarding than cramming everything full of sugar to the point where all you feel is something odd next to the sweetness.
- gnopgnip 10y agoThere are safety concerns when changing any recipe that will be preserved. The sugar in jams and jellies also acts as a preservative after they are opened.
- matt-attack 10y agoCurious how sugar is a preservative? I would have thought it was food for bacteria.
- rdoherty 10y agoI believe sugar is a preservative because it's hygroscopic. http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-does-sugar-act-preservative http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-does-sugar-act-preservati...
- AstralStorm 10y agoOsmotic effect on cell walls. Does not matter for chocolate or already dry pastries.
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- gambiting 10y agoHoney is pretty much nothing but sugar yet absolutely no bacteria can grow in it - there's basically a point where there's too much of it.
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- caf 10y agoHoney also contains a small amount of hydrogen peroxide.
- uremog 10y agoLike salt, it takes up all the water, which bacteria needs.
- tormeh 10y agoIt's both. The dosage makes the poison.
- dghughes 10y agoHoney is an antibacterial and it actually promotes healing. >"The manuka, jelly bush and pasture honeys are capable of stimulating the monocytes, the precursors of macrophages, to secrete TNF-α..." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/ I'm not the roots and berries type but honey seems to be an amazing compound for medicinal purposes.
- joe5150 10y agoThis, among other factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_activity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_activity
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoAfter opening ought not be an issue because presumably refrigeration is used and the product is consumed before spoilage occurs. If I understand correctly high sugar contect uncreases the shelf life. Though with in-container pasteurisation and modern preservatives I'm not sure high sugar content is necessary.
- johnny99 10y agoWe too almost always reduce the sugar in recipes, and also find it usually improves flavor. Though the article says Nestle has made a "scientific breakthrough" so that you get the same level of sweetness with less sugar--so their products may remain overly-sweep goop. Probably healthier at least, unless their re-engineered sugar has weird side effects like Olestra does. I'll take high sugar over "anal leakage" any day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra#Side_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra#Side_effects
- dqv 10y agoI really dislike that they stopped making products with olestra. Not everyone got anal leakage.
- brokenmachine 10y agoI'm guessing that the people who did will have a different opinion to you.
- nitrogen 10y agoLabeling is an option.
- brokenmachine 10y agoTrue, but I don't think I'd eat a chocolate bar with that warning on the label. Maybe it was decided that other consumers would probably make the same decision?
- nitrogen 10y agoThat's probably okay; the few who really want non-nutritive oils could still buy them. But the volume might be low enough to force them off supermarket shelves and into specialty stores.
- jackmodern 10y ago100% agree, a great example of this would be with chocolate chip cookies. If you halve the brown sugar, white sugar, and reduce the chocolate chips by 75%, you end up with a much better tasting cookie. I can't go back to eating full sugar cookies, they're just too sweet.
- geoka9 10y agoYou can preserve in a very light syrup. For example they sell imported cherries and sour cherries in ethnic stores which have very little sugar in the syrup and they taste great!