Recipe: Golden Syrup

Golden Syrup 

Some of you may not even know what this is apparently! Yet here in South Africa, there is not a week that goes by when we are not enjoying some peanut butter and syrup sandwiches. Healthy lot we are, I know. It's really just cane syrup. Lots and lots of sugar but it's delicious. We eat it on bread with or without peanut butter, on pancakes, waffles and flapjacks (dollar pancakes), we use it for baking and crunchies especially.

I was at home, the car was in the garage and I wanted to make crunchies and there was no golden syrup in the house. And like the time I made my own condensed milk, hot chocolate and candied lemon peel - I went online to see what I could find. Of course the added dilemma is that so much of the stuff you read online has to be taken with a pinch of salt or in this case, a pinch of sugar. Unlike printed magazines which guarantee that they test all their recipes three times (or more), people who write blogs or own recipe websites, don't and you never really know how they will come out.

It's really such an easy recipe. My children think it's a real winner, and I made my first batch of crunchies yesterday with it and they were delicious - so all in all I think it was a remarkable success!

Soooo many of you asked me for the recipe so here goes:

Ingredients for Golden Syrup:

water

sugar

2 slices lemon


 part 1 ingredients:
200g sugar
75ml water


part 2 ingredients
1kg of sugar
1litre boiling water
2 slices of lemon



This is really a two part recipe.  I got the original recipe from here, but found that I needed to change and adjust it for it to really work.

So part 1 ingredients are as follows:
200g sugar
75ml water.

Here's a picture of me weighing out the sugar.  Why I put a photo of this in the recipe I have no idea but it seems that bloggers do this and if I don't show you how to do this, you may not know how?

Into the pot it goes - proof that I made it myself, or that I own a pot - not sure which one.

And there's the water!  As you can see this really is a very simple recipe!

Bubble bubble - this is just at the beginning.  You might think that you have left something out because it's not the right colour yet but it's coming.

Now you see how the colour is starting to change - just a hint of colour

And finally the colour I was looking for.  Let it boil until it changes to a golden colour - be careful that you don't overdo it, as at this stage you are determining the flavour of the golden syrup - if you let it get too dark, it doesn't taste as nice. Now this part is key - get the pot off the stove before you add the next set of ingredients otherwise your syrup will start to burn which you really don't want .

Now for part 2 ingredients
1kg of sugar
1litre boiling water
2 slices of lemon

Add the water first and then the sugar as it will stop the syrup from cooking any further while still lying in a hot pot. Don't leave out the lemon.  It's the lemon which helps it become syrup - some kind of chemical reaction. (oh yes and don't forget to the take the seeds out before you do this) Bring the pot to a boil again (I normally put my stove on max and get it boiling and then turn it down so that it boils slowly on a lower temperature but still maintains the boiling- not sure that makes sense but just make sure its bubbling all the time but not about to overflow)

This part is really easy - the mixture needs to boil for up to 40 minutes long.  And your house will smell delicious! In fact for those of you that have made toffee apples, it will definitely remind you of those days!  Once you are finished switch the stove off and wait for about 10 minutes.  Now this is where you have to test the consistency of the mixture.  Put a couple of drops on a small plate - after the tester has cooled it needs to have the right consistency.  If it's hard, then it needs more water.  I would suggest adding about 1/4 cup water, mix it in and test again.  If it's still too thick or hard - add some more.  However you must make sure the test mixture has cooled down sufficiently to give a true reflection of how thick the syrup is.  If it's too thin, then you need to boil it for a little longer.  DO NOT decant into any jars until you have done this test because once it sets (especially if it's too thick or hardens) it will be almost impossible to get it out of the jar afterwards.

And there you have it. I have made this recipe twice already and love it.  Including electricity it cost me about R15 to make and I ended up with enough volume that if I had bought it in the store it would have cost me R58!  So from needing some syrup for crunchies, I ended up discovering an amazing way to make my own golden syrup!

I have already made two batches of crunchies, using my homemade golden syrup and it was delicious!  Give it a try, you wont' be sorry.  If you have any questions about this recipe, feel free to comment and I will try my best to help you with my very limited culinary skills.

**** Remember this is VERY hot, so I would not try this recipe with children around and also don't make any sudden moves with the pot to avoid spilling on yourself.

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