I’ve recently lost over 4 stone (What? you mean you haven’t heard me banging on about it? Oh, you’re being sarcastic.) so anything remotely carby has been off the menu. Now I am back onto a sensible diet of mostly plants, some meat and the odd treat I am slowly reintroducing sugars, in all their forms, to my diet. Here steps in our friend Clarks maple syrup.
When it comes to baking the darker the syrup the more suitable it is for baking. Dark syrup has a stronger flavour and is extracted later in the harvesting season – the darkest of all is grade B. Grade A is lighter and the kind of stuff you might like to liberally throw over your pancakes in the morning.
The good news for baking fans though is that whilst maple syrup is clearly still a sugar it is lower GI than the regular white stuff, meaning it raises your blood sugar slower – a very good thing. I tried using maple syrup in a few cakes of mine recently to put it through my regime of Tough Tests. The first one was the chocolate cake recipe from my book that uses golden syrup (alongside white castor sugar) to add the all important squidge to a big slice of sticky chocolate cake. Now maple is a lot thinner than golden syrup – so I was a little worried it might cause some issues with the texture. I was wrong. In fact I am now using maple syrup as a substitute in this cake all the time. (I do make this cake rather a lot…) I tried it again in the apple cake recipe up on this here blog. I subbed half the sugar with Clarks maple syrup. It was much much harder to pour into the cases, but all in all the flavour and texture was fantastic once baked. Another triumph.
The second way I put the sweet stuff through it’s paces was in the icing from the aforementioned cake recipe. I usually use Monin syrup but decided to try maple flavoured buttercream. Just 3 tbsp lent a sweet, Autumnal and altogether earthy flavour that worked a treat with the spiced apple cake. I thoroughly recommend.
I have a £60 (RRP) Clarks hamper containing to giveaway to one person. There are lots of ways to enter – see the Rafflecopter form below. The first way is just to leave a comment on this post. Easy peasy. Closing date 12th December 2014. How to enter:
- Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
- This giveaway will close on 12th December 2014.
- Please read the rules below.
- Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after the prize has been claimed by the winner.
- First timers: Please watch how Rafflecopter works (video)! It is 46 seconds long. It explains everything.
- If no form is showing, hit refresh and it should appear.
- Complete the form – or your beloved entries will not go into the draw. And that would be such a waste of time.
- Mandatory entries need to be completed first – so leave a blog comment before you try and complete any of the other methods of entry.
- Want more chances to win? Come back daily after tweeting about the giveaway and fill the form in again.
- If you are viewing this by email you will need to click through to enter.
Rules and things:
- Open to anyone over the age of 18, UK only. Sorry to anyone younger or further afield.
- There is 1 x Clarks hamper RRP £60 to giveaway to one person. There’s no cash alternative to the prize and the prize is not transferable. No part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
- Instructions form part of the terms and conditions. Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will obviously be disqualified. The winner will be picked at random using software and then contacted by email. If you win and then don’t respond to this email within 7 days then another winner will be picked so check your emails and your spam! The goodies will be delivered to the winner as soon as possible after you have sent me your delivery address.
- I am running this giveaway on behalf of Clarks who will be responsible for sending the prize to you by post should you win. Their decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.
- This is where I get all stern – please don’t say you have liked the post and followed me on Twitter and Tweeted away like a Tweety thing if you haven’t as guess what? If you win I will check you did do the things you said you did. It’s only fair after all. And I do like fairness.
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