Everybody knows maple syrup and I bet you have at least once eaten it with pancakes. But have you ever eaten it with other foods? I can tell you that you are not the only one wondering whether maple syrup can be used in cooking.
Yes, using maple syrup is a great way to improve the flavor of your recipes. Despite having no idea how to do so, many cooking enthusiasts want to cook using maple syrup. Here are some things to bear in mind if you’re using maple syrup to flavor your food. You may learn all there is to know about maple syrup correctly with the help of my guide.
What is Maple Syrup Used for in Cooking?
A naturally occurring sweetener, maple syrup is made by concentrating maple tree sap. Early in the spring, sap from maple trees is gathered by tapping them, and then it is boiled down to produce tasty, thick syrup. The most popular way to eat maple syrup is on breakfast items like pancakes, but it can also be turned into glazes, curries, and sweet dishes to add sweetness.
But I guess you already know this, and you are looking for something new.
Maple syrup is a useful all-purpose ingredient that can be put directly into recipes without further preparation and is used to make seasoning and other relishes. It can be consumed straight from the container, drizzled over sweets, breakfast items, or yogurt, and blended into ice cream or beverages. Additionally, it’s added to frostings and sour cream. It can also be found cooked into glazes for vegetables.
I bet you didn’t know that coconut maple coffee is a popular drink.
Usually, maple syrup is used as a liquid sweetener, poured right into the dough or batter, in baked items. Additionally, it is possible to make maple-roasted nuts, peanuts, pastries, caramels, candies, and jellies that may be kept fresh by storing them in the refrigerator.
Can I Use Maple Syrup Instead of Honey in Cooking?
Since honey is always a sensitive topic for vegans and I bet most of us consider it non-vegan, alternatives are always welcome. And guess what, maple syrup is one of those alternatives, and can be used in cooking instead of honey.
People use various measures to substitute these two. From my experience, I find it best to use ¾ cup of maple syrup for 1 cup of honey because maple syrup is sweeter and with this ratio, I get pretty much the same sweetness kick.
What you need to know is, both the taste and the texture will be affected by this substitution. Typically, maple syrup is thinner than honey. The results may be thinner. Use somewhat less maple syrup or slightly more solid components to correct this discrepancy. Due to its resemblance in texture and consistency to honey, maple syrup is often considered one of the best honey alternatives.
For me personally, maple syrup is the ideal honey substitute if you often drizzle honey over pancakes or like to combine honey and soy yogurt.
It can easily take the place of honey in a recipe when used for baking. This syrup is a great vegan alternative to honey because it is naturally derived from maple trees. The New York State Maple Association believes that maple syrup has a higher density of minerals and antioxidants than honey, which even has more calories.
Is Cooking With Maple Syrup Healthy?
Maple syrup is healthier than other additives like sugar (brown sugar) and honey because unlike refined sugar, it has some nutrients.
Maple syrup not only tastes good, it’s also healthy, because in addition to the sugar blend, it contains minerals and vitamins that are a welcome boost to our bodies. It contains calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, magnesium, manganese, B vitamins, etc.
Let’s dig deeper on these important nutrients:
- Magnesium and zinc are necessary for the normal functioning of the body.
- Magnesium is essential for the production of enzymes that make sure we have enough energy.
- Zinc content in the syrup reduces the risk of atherosclerosis.
- Zinc also helps the endothelial cells to function properly, which helps prevent damage to the endothelial cells caused by oxidized LDL cholesterol.
Although it contains some of the mentioned nutrients, do not think that it is something to include in your daily meals. To make it clear, maple syrup is healthier than refined (white or brown) sugar, but it is by no means the kind of food that should be eaten daily.
If you are a maple syrup enthusiast, you should be careful when buying it. Check the label to see what is in the product, as many syrups are labelled as natural, even though they are loaded with artificial preservatives, coloring, corn syrup, etc. Original syrups are much more expensive than the so-called ‘natural’ syrups.
Is Maple Syrup Always Vegan?
Being manufactured entirely from maple sap, pure maple syrup is by nature vegan. However, there are situations when non-vegan components are employed in the manufacturing process.
For vegans, here is where things become a little challenging because of the defoamer. A defoamer is required to remove the foam that forms when the sap is boiling to keep the sap from overheating.
Defoamers are made of fat, like oil and many kinds of oils can be used, but the tricky part is, animal fat is also occasionally employed. Beeswax, cream, butter, and other animal-based fats are examples of this.
Synthetically defoamers are also available. To find out what kind of defoamer a firm employs, you would need to contact them. It seems far more typical for large maple syrup producers to use a plant-based defoamer like oil or something synthetic.
Because smaller businesses are more likely to use animal-based defoamer than larger ones, most vegans don’t care about this. It is probably vegan if you buy a well-known brand of maple syrup from your local grocery shop. Traditional maple syrups solely include sap and nothing else.
To increase shelf life in commercial production, several additions are needed, such as:
- Natural or synthetic flavors
- caramel-coloured dye
- sulfate of sulfur
- sorbate of potassium
Like I said, maple syrup is vegan by nature. A vegan-friendly product could become non-vegan if the production procedure is questioned. To make maple syrups keep longer, look better, and taste better, they are often heavily treated. The best course of action is to select vegan-friendly companies and investigate the ingredients.
Last, but not least, I think you might find these facts about maple syrup interesting.
Did You Know Facts About Maple Syrup?
- Quebec in Canada produces the most maple syrup, accounting for 75% of the total.
- The best maple for syrup is the sugar maple, followed by the black maple. Both have a full 2% sugar content in the tree sap.
- The tree must be at least 10 inches in diameter, measured at chest height.
- The tree must be at least 40 years old.
- The sap-gathering season lasts four to six weeks between February and April, when daytime temperatures are above zero and nighttime temperatures below zero. When night temperatures rise, the trees begin to bud and the season is over.
- As the trees have a natural healing process, the drilled holes heal and cannot be used the following year. This intervention does not injure the tree, many of which have been drilled countless times and have lived for centuries.
- Maple syrup contains more calcium than milk and more potassium than bananas.
Conclusion
In conclusion, maple syrup is an excellent sugar replacement for vegans. However, you should always read labels and brands carefully to figure whether a product is vegan or not.
Pure maple syrup is completely natural and has no negative environmental effects. Other sweeteners cannot be compared in the same way.
Many of the antioxidants in maple syrup offer tremendous preventive value and high nutritional content. Finally, it has amazing flavor! Simply put, it is worthwhile to include maple syrup in your diet.
