A snow storm falling throughout Christmas Eve, a huge shopping and travel day, meant we were staying home. The morning was spent revving up the tractor and the snowblower and clearing not only the long driveways and around the chicken coop, but also the 450 yards of road we are responsible for. The blade on the tractor made quick work of the white plague, but with the temperature hovering at 7 degrees, and the windchill well into the negatives, it was still a long, long hour.
The hens took it in stride. The Icelandic chicks are still sleeping outside in the run, which hasn't dipped below 0'F, even though we woke up to -17'F this morning, with a windchill of -30'F. No one is allowed outside at these temperatures as the slightest breeze will rob their fluffy feather coats of their stored body heat. So, the past few days they have been stuck inside with extra feed, treats, and pats on the head.
But I digress.
After the snow was taken care of, and the residents of the hen house given plenty of attention, we resolved to spend the rest of the day in the quiet warmth of the house. I snuggled into my spot on the sofa and disappeared into my latest good book. A half hour later, I was finished with it. Hmmm....what to do next?
I COULD break out the next book on the pile (my 10 year old kindle died, so I am back to paper). I COULD bake cookies. I COULD clean. (LOL, ya, that wasn't happening.) I already had laundry running. I finally decided to crack open the internet and peruse the great www and see if I could find a recipe to play with some of my antique cast iron gem pans. One recipe had me clicking on another, which gave me yet another idea to type into the search engine. On one page an add popped up on the sidebar, as they often do. This was an add for Lyle's Golden Syrup, which I haven't had in the house since about a decade when we lived near a store that imported items from Great Briton. It's been so long that I didn't even remember the taste of it.
Seeing that ad made me think of Treacle Tarts. YUM! I then wondered what else could be created with the glorious goo. A quick search revealed a long list of pies, tarts, cookies, quick breads, puddings and custard. My mind was whirling with possibilities, but where to find Golden Syrup? Even if it wasn't Christmas Eve there wasn't a store within at least an hour drive that MIGHT even carry it. I was just about going to give up, when I thought to myself, "why not google it? At worst the internet will say no."
YOU CAN make Golden Syrup yourself and many reviews said it was better than the stuff you can buy. Well, I'm stuck inside all day, why not make a batch?
I came across several recipes, which were all basically the same. It all came down to reducing sugar, water, and lemon juice down to a syrup after bringing it to a boil. There were several methods for this and after several I got the gist of it and tossed some ingredients in my smallest pot and got cracking.
Golden Syrup
2 cups of granulated white sugar
2/3 cup of water
fresh juice from one lemon - try to make it pulp and seed free
1 Tablespoon of Light Kayro syrup (this keeps crystals from forming) If you are opposed to using corn syrup, you can omit it, you will just have to wash down the sides of your pot with a brush dipped in water as you reduce the liquid to send the sugar crystals that form there to whence they came.
Add all three items to the pot and set the burner to Medium, Medium/Low. You want to SLOWLY heat the liquid to dissolve the sugar. When the liquid is clear, slowly raise the temperature until the liquid comes to a simmer, NOT a boil. Stir it about every 15 minutes. I tested the liquid every once in a while by placing a drip from the tip of a spoon onto a white plate. As the liquid reduced and came closer to the right consistency, the drop would stand up more and more on the plate: going from a gooey pool on the plate at the start, to being pale yellow pearls near the end. If you have a candy thermometer you are shooting for about 225'F, and the remaining liquid will be about half of what you started with. My super slow approach took about two hours of minimal hovering.
I let the mixture cool about 15 minutes before I poured it into a clean glass jar. It is the most lovely shade of deep, honey. My first taste brought back every memory of that sweet, citrus tang!
Now what to do with it? I almost don't want to part with any of it! After the holiday, I really didn't want to to tackle another sweet. I am sick of sweets. What to do? What to do? Back to the internet!
Again with the pies, tarts, cakes, cookies, quick breads, custards, puddings. Wasn't there anything else I could do with this amazing stuff? Sure it looked fabulous on the top shelf of the refrigerator, back lit by the icebox bulb, and it was amazing right off the spoon, but that privilege has always been reserved for sweetened condensed milk. Just when I was about to resign myself to a nice Treacle Tart, I found it.
GOLDEN SYRUP Sandwich Bread - DEAL! It's cold out, and nothing beats the smell of bread baking!
It is a straight forward put out by the BBC Food Channel, and I couldn't believe there were no reviews on it yet. Don't let the metric measurements turn you away. 1oz of Golden Syrup is about a Tablespoon. I used kosher salt for the sea salt. 1/2 an ounce of fresh yeast is roughly 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast (or one envelope). 8 ounces of flour is roughly 2 cups of NON-packed flour.
If you CAN weigh your flour, I do recommend it.
I used my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook to put this together. I placed the flour, salt, and yeast into the bowl, and then added the milk, syrup, butter combination to the bowl. I turned the mixer on to level 1 until the flour was fully incorporated and then turned it up to level 3 for three minutes, scraping the bowl down as needed. After turning off the machine, I covered the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled, about an hour.
After the hour, I placed the dough on a floured board and cut the dough into two pieces. I kneaded each piece just until the dough was well shaped into a tight ball and put them into my larger bread pans, 5x10x3 inches. The recipe calls for greasing AND flouring of the loaf pan. Next time I would skip the flouring. It left a pasty, floury coating on the loaf and isn't needed if the pan is greased. I prefer the new Pam canola oil in the pump spray bottle, but whichever method you prefer is fine. A final rise until the dough doubled and then follow the rest of the instructions.
Following the baking directions for time and multiple baking temperatures works beautifully! This recipe yields a lightly golden loaf, that is moist, soft, delicately flavored, and fine crumbed. It rises well, which I am guessing is due to the vitamin C (lemon juice) boosting the yeast.
Happy Baking!
Wow home made golden syrup oh yum! Love your photos xxx
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