I made a syrup from ground black walnut and sunflower seeds, but boy is it overly sweet. I do know I could use some form of flour (qinoa, amaranth, millet, all purpose, corn meal, corn starch, etc), but I'm curious if anyone might know of something I haven't thought of yet.
If you use too much, xanthan gum can make sauces slimy.
Well that piques my curiosity. I'll definitely have to try that the next time I go shopping.
Hmm! If it doesn't have that much of a flavor to it, I bet that'd work for thinning the sugar content of a caramel syrup. (The hamster is running on his wheel, 🤔)
In addition to what Jet said (agar, xanthan gum, gelatin,); you can add starches like corn starch or potato starch. a little goes a long way.
another thing is, for sauces, you can just cook off most the liquid and call it good. Especially for pan sauces made by deglazing fond- drain off excessive oil/grease and then add in some sort of liquid- vinegar, lime juice, straight water. scrap the pan and whisk until the fond is smooth.
Edit to add: you can also mix and match, to get the texture you want. Like with pie thickeners, it’s usually a mix of sugar, corn starch and some gelatin; to give it the perfect texture
Just to add to this, fruit can be used to both cut out a lot of the sugar and to thicken sweet sauces as well.
Also, I just realized I could make date paste. (Something that never crossed my mind til reading your comment, 🙄. I've blended them fresh, but have never softened them).
As for caramel, I can find lots of things about sugar-free, but nothing on lowering the sugar content. "3 Ingredients Sugarfree Caramel Sauce" However, this video makes me think I could easily thicken and lower the sugar content of at least a buttery caramel. (Mental note to self; give that idea a try).
🤔 Some things to think about.
Based on the wording of your post, there's a few different questions it seems like you could be asking.
To make the current one less sweet, I think you could add something with bitterness or acidity. They literally make black walnut bitters, and you could look into adding some of that ino the syrup. Depending on how you plan to use it, you could serve it with an acidic component.
To make future syrups less sweet, you could use glucose, which is less sweet than sucrose or fructose. To make them less sweet and have less sugar, you could use many different thickeners depending on how you want the texture. Xanthan gum, gum Arabic, maltodextrin, pectin, etc.
Carrots are super sweet fruits, they can add sweetness to sauces.
Depending on the variety you're growing they can be extremely sweet. Like candy. This is because heirloom varieties in particular, when frozen, will convert their starches to sugars in an attempt to survive.
Most carrots sold to supermarkets or grocers are not able to do this, and they're less sweet (but still fairly sweet, for a vegetable.).
part of the science of why we're so keyed for sweet things... is because sweet meant it was 'in season'.
Butter, or some other type of fat like coconut oil would probably help.
You could also try pectin.
First test using cornstarch.
Caramelize the following.
1/4 c. Sugar
2+1/2 Tbls. Water
Then whisk in a little at a time
1 c. Water
1 Tbls. Cornstarch
1 tsp. Vanilla
pinch of salt
bring to a boil then remove from heat mixing in
2 tsp. Ground unsalted sunflower seeds
1 tsp. Ground black walnuts.
So far not too bad. The sweetness is perfect (i'm guessing I used about two or three tablespoons of the sauce on a buckwheat and sunflower seed pancake). Will have to wait til tomorrow to see how it cures overnight.
There was one hiccup. I mixed in the cornstarch into the water, and the water really needed to be boiling (which wasn't possible with the cornstarch). Though, so far it seems fine. So maybe it won't be a problem.
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