Friday, July 22, 2011

Food translations - corn syrup

A few times I've seen a recipe with corn syrup in it, raised an eyebrow and chosen a different recipe. Corn syrup? Sounds bizarre.

I was just browsing Made With Pink's food blog though, and found a "Food Translation" chart. As it turns out, corn syrup is the US equivalent of our golden syrup.

Or so it says. But the more I thought about it the more that didn't seem right. I'm not hugely knowledgeable about sugars, but I always thought that golden syrup was derived from sugar cane, and I assume that corn syrup is derived from corn. Thus I went back to Google to dig a little deeper.

And as it turns out, according to Baking Bites, they are NOT the same thing. They're similar in colour, but golden syrup has a distinctive taste, whereas corn syrup is mild enough that it blends into other flavours, just adding some sweetness. However, the most useful snippet of information, which at the end of the day will aid me in my baking adventures:
The flavors are different, but the two products can be used interchangeably in cooking and baking because they have much the same properties.
If you're into baking, check out my new blog - Cakie's Home Baking. There's probably plenty of stuff over there that you already knew too.

Monday, July 4, 2011

He's no Madonna

Haven't you ever wondered if Dr. Oz has a first name? Well, he does. And it's Mehmet.

Despite what my husband thinks, Dr. Oz is a real life doctor. He works at New York Presbyterian Hospital, directing the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program and performing over 100 heart surgeries a year. Not a bad effort considering he also tapes 2 shows a day 3 days a week.

He's been married for 26 years and has 4 children - Daphne, Arabella, Zoe and Oliver. Nice.