Sugar vs. Honey Sweeteners in your Recipes



Posted: Tuesday, September 08, 2009

by
Mama Healthy

Sweeteners like a honey sugar mixed together are very useful for recipes and also for the manufacturing and processing of food and beverages. However, it is very important to properly mix them it. When cooking bread, desserts or snacks, healthy sweeteners, homemakers and chefs add sweet flavors to the recipes by preventing crystallization. They commonly add fat, such as butter and/or acid, such as lemon juice, to achieve this.

Both sugar and honey contain fructose and glucose. Honey contains other micro nutrients and forms of sugars such as sucrose, maltose, and melezitose. To add a sweet flavors and a smooth texture at the same time, mix both of these sweeteners into your favorite recipe and coffee, tea, or drink. Desserts are made with this mixture as it properly solidifies and crystallizes. The honey sugar mixture can take two forms a crystalline, such as fudge and fondant, and non-crystalline, such as lollipops, taffy, and caramels. There are many recipe ingredients and procedures that are designed to prevent the grainy texture from non-crystalline mixtures.

There are many ways to avoid the formation of crystals in sugar. Other kinds of sweeteners also prevent crystallization, so you can use them. Chefs usually use fructose and glucose to achieve this because the large crystals of sucrose have a harder time forming when molecules of fructose and glucose are in the honey sugar mixture.

Another way to break up the crystals in recipes is to add an acidic type of ingredient, such as lemon juice or cream of tartar. Both acidic ingredients and fatty oils are commonly used to help mix in sweeteners when adding them to recipes. Adding these ingredients causes the honey sugar to break down into these two components.

Also, another way is to add a non-sucrose sugar, such as corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup. However, adding more of these type of processed sweeteners make your foods unhealthy. You should use these when it is absolutely necessary.

Another ingredient commonly added to recipes are fats or oils. Fatty ingredients, such as butter, give the recipes a smooth texture because they interfere with the crystallization of sweeteners. For example, toffee is very smooth texture and can be easy broken because it has butter in the mixture. When using honey sugar in recipes it is important to prevent crystals from forming into the mix. Also it is important to add a fat or an acid to break down the mixture.

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Mama Healthy honey sugar recipes include healthy recipes with alternative ingredients. Mama Healthy also offers organic sweetener ingredients and spice blends.

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