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Golden Syrup

Introduction & method

Golden syrup is used in many cake and biscuit / cookie recipes. It can be quite expensive, depending on where you live. But did you know you can make your own? All it takes is sugar, water, a bit of lemon juice and about an hour.

 Golden Syrup Recipe

Making golden syrup is a 2-stage process - an initial caramel, and then bulking it up and cooking.

Make the caramel for golden syrup


Swirl together the sugar and water in a pan over medium heat. As it bubbles away, it will thicken and darken in colour. Do not stir it during this stage - you might cause it to crystallize. When it has thickened somewhat and taken on a golden colour, move on to the next stage.

Bulking up the Golden Syrup


Dissolve the remaining sugar in the boiling water, and add the lemon juice. Pour this mixture into the pan with the caramel. It may spit and sputter at this point, so be careful - there are few things hotter than boiling sugar, and they tend to be found inside nuclear reactors. Swirl the mixture together and bring to the boil.

Let the syrup simmer on low heat for 45 minutes, at which point it should be a bit runnier than honey, and a medium gold colour. If it is, congratulations, you are a natural born syrup-maker! Stick it in a sterilised jar and use as required. The syrup will become a bit thicker as it cools. Everybody else, see below.

What goes wrong with Golden Syrup


Really, only two things can go wrong when making golden syrup. One, it's too runny. Two, it sets too hard. Oh, possibly three, it's almost black and tastes like molasses - but that's okay, lots of people like molasses!

If it's too runny, cook for a bit longer, maybe about 15 minutes. If it's too hard, make up a half batch of sugar and boiling water, dissolve that into original syrup and cook until you get that not-quite-honey consistency.


The video above is from the Keef Cooks YouTube channel. Click here to see the video recipe of Golden Syrup on YouTube.

 
You might also like these recipes:

Orange Marmalade

Mushroom Ketchup

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Ingredients & Info


CARAMEL
 100 grams white sugar
 25 ml water
  SYRUP
 500 grams white sugar
 300 ml boiling water
 2 tbsp lemon juice

UNITS:
Metric
US Customary/Imperial

Makes about 750 mls (1.5 pints)
Prep time: 5 minutes.
Cooking time: 55 minutes.
Total time: 1 hour.