Corn Syrup

lovelymama

I'm making a recipe (icing) for cakes like little French Fancies and the icing part calls for Corn Syrup - does anyone know what this is?

And even better, if it is sold in Ireland please?

jendafer1

I'm pretty certain corn syrup is just golden syrup? Or at least one can be substituted for the other. Is it an American recipe you are following?

lovelymama

Thanks for the reply.

It is an American recipe but from looking at step by step pictures it doesn't look like golden syrup - more like a sugar syrup that you might make with sugar and water. It's see through - any thoughts?

flikflak

It seems there are 2 types - a light and a dark

So you can either use golden syrup or make a sugar syrup or use 225 grams of sugar and 30 ml of water

huskerdu

Corn syrup is a syrup made by processing corn or maize and it is mostly glucose and water.

If you substituted golden syrup or a sugar syrup, the problem would be not knowing how runny it is supposed to be.

What is the recipe for and how much corn syrup is there. It might not matter exactly how runny it is.

Magic Monkey

In Dublin city centre, Fallon & Byrne sell Karo corn syrup. In the Asia Market on Drury St. in the Korean section they sell 1.2 Ltr bottles of corn syrup for around €4.

You can also use glucose syrup. You can get it in Kitchen Complements on Chatham St. in Dublin city centre.

Substituting other syrups, e.g. simple syrup (sugar and water solution) or golden, won't have the same end result as for one thing, they all have varying levels of sweetness, and corn syrup isn't very sweet at all. It's role in the french fancies for the fondant icing is to help give it a smooth texture and body whilst not contributing to sweetness at the same time.

But depending on how much the recipe requires, say if it's just 30g for a 500g batch, the best substitute to hand would be golden syrup.

lovelymama

huskerdu wrote: »

Corn syrup is a syrup made by processing corn or maize and it is mostly glucose and water.

If you substituted golden syrup or a sugar syrup, the problem would be not knowing how runny it is supposed to be.

What is the recipe for and how much corn syrup is there. It might not matter exactly how runny it is.

Interesting. It's this recipe - the icing part. It uses quite a bit of it.

You can see the icing is like a glace icing but I suspect the corn syrup does something to make it runny as making glace icing out of just icing sugar and water makes a thicker icing (which needs a knife to spread it) or a more watery icing which doesn't cling to the cake.

lovelymama

Magic Monkey wrote: »

In Dublin city centre, Fallon & Byrne sell Karo corn syrup. In the Asia Market on Drury St. in the Korean section they sell 1.2 Ltr bottles of corn syrup for around €4.

You can also use glucose syrup. You can get it in Kitchen Complements on Chatham St. in Dublin city centre.

Substituting other syrups, e.g. simple syrup (sugar and water solution) or golden, won't have the same end result as for one thing, they all have varying levels of sweetness, and corn syrup isn't very sweet at all. It's role in the french fancies for the fondant icing is to help give it a smooth texture and body whilst not contributing to sweetness at the same time.

But depending on how much the recipe requires, say if it's just 30g for a 500g batch, the best substitute to hand would be golden syrup.

Just read this Magic Monkey - I think you are right about its role in the icing. Thanks for the heads up on the shops - I will try there at the weekend. In the meantime, the recipe is half a cup which is a fair amount. Do you think golden syrup would work in that quantity? I have my doubts.....?

Magic Monkey

1/2 cup corn syrup is 120ml, 9 cups icing/confectioner's sugar is 1,035g. What you could do is make a 1/4 batch using golden syrup and see how it tastes, and if it's not too sweet, proceed with the full batch using the golden syrup. Substitute the golden syrup in equal amounts for the corn syrup, as the densities are similar.

lovelymama

Ok thanks Magic Monkey - that's a good idea. I'll let you know how they work out