I have decided that making syrup is something that is rather fun. I used to be intimidated by it. I actually used to run screaming from it. Make syrup? Are you kidding me? Not happening! That would be my normal response. That would be my lazy chef response. That was then, this is now. I made it out of desperation because we were having breakfast for dinner one night because I did not want to cook anything else. There was only a slight problem. We did not have enough syrup to do that. I still did not want to cook something else.
I knew that I had some Maple Extract in the cupboard, surely it could not be as bad as I remembered it being the couple of times before that I had made it. I must have been losing my mind thinking that it was this horrible thing after all these years, right? I am older and more experienced, it really cannot be that bad, right? At any rate, I was doing it anyway because we were having pancakes for dinner. I had already made the pancake batter. We were committed already.
So I went quickly searching for a syrup recipe online. I found one that I knew I had all the ingredients for that did not appear to be super sweet. I did not want a super sweet recipe. The one I found did not even call for corn syrup. It was not that I did not have corn syrup. I did. I make pecan pies every year for Thanksgiving, I have corn syrup. I was intrigued. I had only ever made syrup with corn syrup before.
I was feeling adventurous…
It was an adventure I would come to repeat. It was not that hard. It was not that bad. The hardest part was making sure that I did not burn the sugar to the bottom of the pan. Aside from that it was not a big deal at all. It was actually very easy. A little time consuming maybe, but it actually did not take that long with the recipe that I found. A few minutes actually. I have made it a couple of times now.
My pot of Homemade Vanilla Syrup. The first time I tried this recipe, I went fully committed. I made it Maple Syrup instead of Vanilla Syrup. I made a double batch. I did not think that a single batch would be enough for the huge batch of pancakes that I made to feed my ravenous boys for dinner. They eat a lot of pancakes. This batch I did not make as large.
Here is the syrup with the waffles we had when I made the Vanilla Syrup. The syrup is thinner than store bought syrup so you have to be prepared for that. It is not thick. It is runny. It is more watery. That is my experience with almost every homemade syrup I have tried. There is nothing wrong with that per say. The thing I have found is that it is really good with both the Maple Extract and the Vanilla Extract. We really liked it with the Vanilla Extract. It does set up in the fridge and is a bit thicker than normal syrup after being in the fridge so you have to let it warm up more than normal syrup. I tweaked it a little bit with the second batch and it does not set up quite as much in the fridge.
The best part in my opinion is that it does not seem to be as sweet as store bought syrup. Even the sugar free syrups tend to mess with my blood sugar. This does not do that as much. I like that. Better even than that is that the children really did like it better. They really do like it.
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