Golden Syrup
Five pounds white sugar; one quart water. Let it boil two or three minutes, then add two pounds strained honey. It will keep for months.--Mrs. D. C.
A homemade stand-in for commercial golden syrup: a heavy sugar solution loosened with honey so it pours rather than sets. The whole thing hinges on getting the sugar fully into solution without seeding crystals on the way.
- Quantities and yieldFive pounds of sugar is about 11 cups; one quart of water is 4 cups; two pounds of honey is roughly 2⅔ cups. Dissolved, that comes to something close to three quarts of finished syrup — a large batch, and the original notes it will keep for months.
- Watch the crystals, not the clockTwo or three minutes at a boil is enough to dissolve the sugar, but any grains clinging above the waterline will seed the whole batch. Wash the pan sides down with a wet pastry brush and resist stirring once it boils.
- Add the honey off the heatHoney's flavour compounds are volatile and its aroma flattens with prolonged boiling. Stir it in once the sugar syrup is clear and just off the boil, then return briefly to heat only if it needs help combining.
- Why honey is here at allHoney is largely invert sugar — glucose and fructose — and those interfere with sucrose crystal formation. It is doing the same job the acid does in commercial golden syrup, not merely flavouring.
- "Strained honey"In 1879 this meant honey drained or pressed from the comb and passed through cloth, as opposed to comb honey sold in the frame. Any modern liquid honey qualifies; a mild clover or orange-blossom keeps the syrup neutral enough for general use.
- ConsistencyThis will be thinner than Lyle's, closer to a table syrup than a baking syrup. Boiling the sugar and water a few minutes longer before the honey goes in will thicken it, but the more water you drive off the greater the risk of grain on standing.
- StorageBottle it hot in clean jars and keep it covered. The sugar concentration is high enough to resist spoilage, but a lid keeps out dust and stops the surface drying to a crust. If it does crystallize, warm the jar in a water bath.
- One caveat on honeyHoney, raw or cooked into syrup, should not be given to children under one year old because of the risk of infant botulism. Brief boiling does not remove that risk.
Golden syrup as a branded article is generally traced to the Scottish sugar refiner Abram Lyle, whose London works began selling the partially inverted refinery syrup at some point in the 1880s; it was a way of turning an unsaleable by-product of cane refining into a grocery staple. Housekeeping in Old Virginia appeared in 1879, and Mrs. D. C.'s formula is the sort of thing a Southern household made instead — a keeping syrup built from white sugar, which by then was cheap and reliable, and honey, which was still commonly kept at home or bought from a neighbour with hives. Compilations like this one, gathered from named contributors across Virginia, are full of such substitutions: preparations that stand in for something imported or manufactured, made from what the place already had.