Florentina Lewis
Molasses is a by-product of sugar production and is becoming increasingly popular as a sugar substitute. But is brown syrup a suitable alternative to household sugar?
What is molasses?
Molasses is a viscous brown syrup that is a by-product of sugar production. Molasses is mainly produced during the processing of sugar cane, sugar beet, and sweet sorghum.
100 grams of molasses has about 290 calories. Syrup has a sugar content of almost 50 percent. The taste is sweet to slightly bitter and has a licorice-like aftertaste. The syrup is used, among other things, to produce yeast and alcohol and is used as animal feed in agriculture.
What is molasses good for?
You can use the syrup for baking, to sweeten drinks, muesli, milk, pudding, or as a spread. Molasses is mainly available in health food stores and health food stores.
Molasses compared to table sugar
Since molasses is the basis of ordinary sugar, it consists largely of the same substances as table sugar. When it comes to sweetening, a distinction can be made between light and dark molasses. While light molasses still contains many sugar crystals, these are almost completely removed from dark molasses. The sweetening power also varies accordingly.
The syrup can therefore not be used one-to-one in recipes as a sugar substitute. The taste of dark molasses is significantly less sweet and has a malty note. Despite its unusual taste, molasses is one of the most popular spreads in Germany. It comes right after nut nougat cream and jam
