Thursday, January 1, 2009

88. Vanilla-Brown Sugar Syrup (p. 646)


For almost as long as I can remember, "syrup" meant one thing ... Aunt Jemima. What can I say, it's good. But after listening to my wife tell me for the umpteenth time, "that's not real food," I switched to pure Vermont maple syrup. It's really all you need to make pancakes or French toast complete.

So, I'm sure you won't fault me when I say that the only reason I made this recipe* to go with my Baked French Toast was to check off another recipe toward The Project. But I'm glad I made it. It was easy and tasty. All I did was boil together some dark brown sugar, water and butter until it was thick and syrupy. At the very end, I added a bit of lemon juice and vanilla extract. The flavor of this syrup was good. Very sweet, with a subtle vanilla flavor (could have been stronger). The consistency was just right, too. I stirred the leftovers into plain oatmeal, and that was good, too.

Honestly, I don't think I'll make this again unless I'm having a pancake emergency (don't laugh, they happen) and don't have any Vermont maple syrup on hand.

Date Cooked: December 13, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is just what I need. I cannot stand the smell of maple syrup (I was very sick after eating it once) and usually eat whipped cream or powdered sugar over pancakes and waffles. This sounds like a great alternative.

Liz T. said...

Wow - this would be a great trick for those syrup emergencies. My son insists on eating a waffle every morning (frozen, sorry) and sometimes I don't pay enough attention to the syrup level. Bad Momma. :)

Cindy said...

I have always bought the Aunt Jemima syrup with the butter flavouring, but I don't tell anyone! ;o)
This recipe looks just fine to me, and we don't eat pancakes that much anyway!
Some actual recipes call for syrup, so it would be nice to have this on hand when necessary!

Cindy H
Hard Brown Sugar?