Corn Syrup, The Sweetener For All Ages

In a recent article about caramel’s history, we focused on the four ingredients that make caramel the masterpiece companion to hand dipped chocolates it is; sugar, water, milk, and fat. When I readied to share the recipe for the caramel that we dip, to my utter shock, I found two additional ingredients: corn syrup and vanilla.

My discovery requires an explanation, or clarification, or admission of my ignorance; whatever.

Was the previous article wrong, naïve, or just inaccurate?

So, delving into the corn syrup ingredient controversy, I found myself vindicated. Corn syrup is not an additional ingredient at all, it’s just another form of sugar. Ha!

Corn syrup is simply a liquid sweetener. It’s a sugar made from cornstarch. Corn syrup comprises pure glucose, a simple sugar. Table sugar, the white crystal sugar I dump in my Cheerios and you into your coffee in the morning, consists of sucrose, which comprises glucose and fructose.

Because of its properties as a liquid sweetener, we use corn syrup in candies to provide shine and to prevent the crystallization of the sugars. Corn syrup also provides moisture to caramel, helping maintain its softness.

Let me defend the good name of the corn syrup we use while making caramel we use with hand dipped chocolates. Lots of nutty health folks these days (and I’m not talking about nuts in caramel, I’m talking about nuts in the media) like to confuse the public when they criticize high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup is not the same thing as high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup, which you can’t buy in the supermarket or even in the mini-mart, is completely different. High-fructose corn syrup is a commercial sweetener that is made by taking ordinary corn syrup and converting some of the glucose into fructose by adding enzymes. That conversion makes it almost twice as sweet as table sugar. That extra sweetness, along with the fact that it is cheap to produce, makes high-fructose corn syrup ideal for commercially produced foods like soda, candy, etc. So, why are the nutty folks against high-fructose corn syrup? I guess because it will make you fatter, faster.

There are two varieties of corn syrup, light and dark. Light of course is colorless and has a pure, sweet flavor. The dark corn syrup includes molasses which gives it a darker color and more of the caramel-like flavor. You can interchange them, but the flavors are a bit different, as is the appearance.

Culinary experts with a bit more experience than me, claim corn syrup enhances not just my caramel, but its use pays off with homemade ice cream, sugary syrups and even cakes. It does this because corn syrup is such an excellent smoothing agent. It prevents hard crystals from forming in the sugar, which has the tendency to recrystallize making your finished product grainy or gritty, and yes, that is redundant.

Before I get all scientific here, let me state for the record – sugar is sugar, and I’m a big fan. In fact, because of sugar, I am big. So, let’s get that out of the way. But while we talk about such sweet things, let’s talk sugar in general. There’s more to sugar than just the white stuff on the table and corn syrup in the cupboard. I mentioned glucose and fructose, but what about all the other ‘ose’ ending foods, like lactose, dextrose, and sucrose?

In an effort to confuse you and make smart people who think they know chemistry go crazy; let me explain what all these ‘ose’ sugars are. They’re disaccharides. I think that means ‘double sugars.’ In other words, they’re just different combinations of molecules that come from different plant and animal sources and they differ in the way the plant or animal creates and utilizes them and the way we extract and use them. They are the energy system for life. Wow, was that brilliantly said?” And then of course, if a disaccharide is a double sugar, then a monosaccharide is just a plain old lonely sugar. And yes, they are carbohydrates. (Now you can relax because I used a word you recognize)

Let’s briefly look at each of the common sugars.

SUCROSE

Sucrose, is table sugar, and it is the most common disaccharide that us non-dieting humans eat. It comprises the monosaccharides, glucose and fructose. When we digest disaccharides like sucrose, they break down into their simple sugars we use for energy.

MALTOSE

Maltose, also known as malt sugar, is formed from two glucose molecules. Malt is formed when grains soften and grow in water, and it is a component of beer, starchy foods like cereal, pasta, and potatoes, and many sweetened processed foods.

LACTOSE

Lactose, or milk sugar, is made up of galactose and glucose. The milk of mammals is high in lactose and provides nutrients for infants. I once read that most mammals can only digest lactose as infants, and when humans are able to digest dairy products in adulthood, it’s because they have a mutation that allows them to do so. I also read that this mutation became prevalent in our populations around 10,000 years ago. I need to get a t-shirt that says I’m a proud mutant.

TREHALOSE

Trehalose is also made up of two glucose molecules like maltose, but the molecules link differently. We find trehalose in certain plants like fungi, and in animals like shrimp and insects. They say the blood sugar of many insects, such as bees, grasshoppers, and butterflies, is made up of trehalose. Because of it breaks down efficiently, it provides rapid energy for flight.

LACTULOSE

Lactulose is formed from fructose and galactose. It mostly has medical uses. Some countries use it in food, but not in the United States, where it’s viewed as a pharmaceutical that might potentially harm diabetics.

CELLOBIOSE

Like maltose and trehalose, cellobiose is also made up of two glucose molecules, but they are linked even more differently. Since I don’t wish to learn more science that doesn’t result in the taste of my caramel. This is all the ‘ose’s we’ll discuss here.

From all of this ‘ose’ rambling, what we need to know is, we often use corn syrup in making our caramel because it’s a great sweetener and an outstanding agent in helping the other sugars behave themselves. Corn Syrup is not mandatory. We use a variety of recipes for caramel, and they don’t all call for corn syrup. But now you know why with some, we do. In a future article, we’ll cook two versions side by side and compare the final products.