Cooking With Maple
BENEFITS OF COOKING WITH PURE MAPLE SYRUP
Cooking with pure maple syrup not only adds a delightful natural sweetness to your dishes, but also provides numerous health benefits.
Rich in essential minerals such as manganese, zinc, calcium and potassium, this golden nectar contributes to maintaining a robust immune system and supports bone health. Additionally, the presence of antioxidants in maple syrup helps combat free radicals, promoting overall well-being and reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
Substituting Maple Syrup in Baking and Cooking
There are a few tricks in the kitchen you can use when substituting with maple syrup.
When replacing plain sugar with maple syrup, replace about ¾ the amount of sugar in the recipe with maple syrup. Maple will burn at a lower temperature than processed white sugar, so keep a close eye on the time. Or, you can substitute pure granulated maple sugar one-for-one and you won’t have to compensate for the added liquid as you would when using maple syrup.
Maple syrup and maple sugar bake up very similarly to cane sugar. For the simplest substitution, use maple syrup for oil-based cakes and maple sugar for butter-based cakes. However, both can work in any recipe to replace sugar.
New Ways To Add Taste: More Than a Pour?
Replacing plain sweeteners like sugar with maple syrup adds rich and complex flavors to recipes and baked foods.
In the past few decades, maple syrup has become somewhat of a sensation among chefs in restaurants across the country. That’s because replacing other sweeteners with maple syrup lends a richer, more nuanced flavor in fine cuisine without overtaking the overall flavor.
Maple syrup is often used as an ingredient in North American home cooking too. Depending on how you use it, it can add a subtle taste or really push the flavor to add pizzazz to all kinds of foods.
MAPLE SYRUP IN COOKING
You can use it for salad dressings, as a glaze on salmon, ham or turkey, mix it in with butter in roasted vegetables and use it as a part of meat marinades. You can add maple syrup to store-bought or homemade barbecue sauces. It can be added to sauces, bean and vegetable casseroles, and chili.
Photo courtesy of Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producers
Maple Syrup in Cold and Hot Drinks
Maple syrup as well as maple sugar can add a special, sophisticated aroma to coffee, hot drinks, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic party drinks.
Maple Syrup and Baked Goods
Maple syrup is often used to accompany or replace regular white sugar in baking and as a substitute for honey. The maple syrup taste infuses a subtle caramel flavor to baked goods like muffins, cookies, cakes, pies and banana bread. Depending on the grade of syrup you use, from light or amber to dark, you can enhance the intensity of the flavor to suit your dish.