My wife's standard approach to any cake or confectionary recipe is to immediately half the listed quantity of sugar. Apparently this is common amongst pastry-chefs in catering and doesn't appear to affect the final result other than being a bit paler after cooking.
We even made half-sugar doughnuts recently which were still delicious ( no topping or filling needed ).
So I reckon Nestle will just produce a slightly less bulky confectionery, for the same price of course.
Me and my girlfriend (we both really, really like cooking) do that with a lot of recipes that involve sugar. It does affect the texture, but I think it often improves the taste.
There are things that ought to be sugary (like thick syrups used for preserving), but most pastries, jams, jellies and deserts in general need surprisingly less sugar than recent cookbooks would imply. Adding just enough sugar to take the edge off of bitterness or sourness ends up being more rewarding than cramming everything full of sugar to the point where all you feel is something odd next to the sweetness.
There are safety concerns when changing any recipe that will be preserved. The sugar in jams and jellies also acts as a preservative after they are opened.
After opening ought not be an issue because presumably refrigeration is used and the product is consumed before spoilage occurs.
If I understand correctly high sugar contect uncreases the shelf life. Though with in-container pasteurisation and modern preservatives I'm not sure high sugar content is necessary.
We too almost always reduce the sugar in recipes, and also find it usually improves flavor. Though the article says Nestle has made a "scientific breakthrough" so that you get the same level of sweetness with less sugar--so their products may remain overly-sweep goop.
Probably healthier at least, unless their re-engineered sugar has weird side effects like Olestra does. I'll take high sugar over "anal leakage" any day:
That's probably okay; the few who really want non-nutritive oils could still buy them. But the volume might be low enough to force them off supermarket shelves and into specialty stores.
You can preserve in a very light syrup.
For example they sell imported cherries and sour cherries in ethnic stores which have very little sugar in the syrup and they taste great!
100% agree, a great example of this would be with chocolate chip cookies. If you halve the brown sugar, white sugar, and reduce the chocolate chips by 75%, you end up with a much better tasting cookie. I can't go back to eating full sugar cookies, they're just too sweet.
I have a Taiwanese friend who says that she always halves the amount of sugar in any western recipe she makes so that it's palatable, since she hasn't grown up eating the over-sweetened garbage food that a lot of Western kids grew up with.
Anyone making food from 'recipes' in the West is likely not eating 'garbage'.
Though we do eat 'too much sugar' - the 'garbage' I suggest is really over-processed, too much hydrogenated oil etc. etc..
Anyone that made their diet out of things 'they cooked themselves' could very well use the recipes as they are and do pretty well. Most dinner dishes do not even call for sugar. Mostly only cakes and what-not. Maybe muffins are a culprit? :)
I wish Americans would stop assuming their issues are universal to the West. Excessive sugar in recipes is a specifically American problem. I grew up in Europe, and the difference is huge.
Thanks! I was wondering the whole thread whats going on. I dislike american food for exact that reason (and over use of fats). Not because i think its unhealthy but because growing up in central europe i am simply not used t these fatty suggary treads.
On the other hand when I was in Japan I found that all their takes on 'western' baking was ridiculously sweet. As in it tasted like they'd used twice the sugar they where supposed to.
Also sugar, like salt and chili are all ingredients where you can adjust how much you need if you don't do it too often.
I.e. if you don't eat a lot of sugar it doesn't take a lot of sugar for you to feel satisfied by the sweetness, and vice versa if you eat a lot you need more and more (which is a huge problem with sugar in alot of food today)
I think it's also one of those things where the less sugar you eat the more pronounced it tasted.
Anecdotally, everything in Champaign IL tastes way sweeter after vacationing back home in Palo Alto where we rarely consume corn syrup or excess sweeteners
When I bake at home I do the same thing. I'm still a bit hit or miss with regard to having things come out with the same texture/feel (how they rise or not, etc.) My basic question is how to compensate for the proportions new proportions.
But overall, the taste is much more palatable because there is much less sugar-shock.
My wife used to work in the hottest pastrie place in our city. The stuff there was totally amazing. It tasted great but not too sweet and it even felt so "light" that you'd always thing "why not have a second, third or fourth piece?"
When she quit she stole the recipes so that we could make this awesome stuff at home. Besides some really cool secret ingredients the only difference between home recipes and "best cake in town" was that the used AT LEAST twice the amount of sugar, eggs and cream than I've ever seen in any recipe.
Edit: As others mentioned. There seems to be a huge difference between Europe and USA. So these are European recipes. ;)
I do this for hot chocolate: double the cocoa powder and half the sugar from what it says on the box. Whisk with whole milk, and enjoy an incredibly rich chocolate flavor.
There's a difference between 'instant hot chocolate' powder (which is sweetened), and 'cocoa powder' (typically unsweetened, and quite bitter unless sugar is added).
In general, I'd recommend against cutting the butter; not only is it delicious, but it also provides a nice dose of cholesterol - gotta keep those androgens high[1]. I'd argue that butter is the only healthy component of mac and cheese, so most people (excepting those with particular dietary needs) might as well keep it in and enjoy increased muscle mass[2] and a leaner body composition[3].
You're conflating dietary and blood cholesterol, which are completely different things. Eating lots of cholesterol does not give you high blood cholesterol.
I use 25% more butter plus cream instead of milk + fine shredded cheese, heat just enough to melt the butter and beat up with a whisk before mixing up with the noodles.
Had to Google 'sticks of butter', crazy Americans ;)
I also don't understand what Kraft is doing you telling you how to make macaroni cheese... What's in a 'Kraft mac and cheese' box that it still requires making, and yet is also some kind of recipe kit?
> Had to Google 'sticks of butter', crazy Americans ;)
Where are you from? sticks of butter are a commonly understood quantity in Australia. Usually that's a safe bet that in other commonwealth countries it's the same.
I'm in Australia and I don't think I've ever heard of it (except maybe glossing over American recipes online). I've always measured butter in grams. The packaging often has markers so you can roughly estimate to the nearest 50g but that is it as far as I know. If anything I might have assumed it was something approximating these 50g slices.
I just don't understand the value in that... Swap the "dry cheese flavouring" for a bit of cornflour (or plain) and real cheese, and you have better fresher macaroni cheese with no difficulty increase; probably cheaper too.
You're not wrong, but the idea is that it has a longer shelf life, and perhaps more consistency in flavor.
Many American staples are throwbacks to the depression era, where buying a flat of Campbell's soup was a safer bet than buying a bunch of tomatoes and cream. Since then, marketers have capitalized on that sense of consistency, as well as feelings of nostalgia, to ingrain that sort of food into the American psyche.
'Better' is debatable. If you make it well, it can be quite good. Add extra milk, butter, (and salt if needed). Strain and add these before the noodles are soft, and keep it on the stove until it reduces and softens. It's a completely different experience.
Most people seem to mix that crap in cold and end up with dry, pasty mush.
I don't think the amount of butter matters at all here... You're still eating Kraft mac n' cheese, which is 100% processed... You'd be better off just eating the stick of butter on its own.
It's more likely that a greater amount of people use the recipe as-is, instead of halving. My guess is the recipes aren't playing reverse-psychology with cooks.
Back in 2008 Hershey's had to stop using the term milk chocolate it had to use "chocolate candy" because they started using cheaper ingredients. I guess they'll change again to this weird sugar to save on the formerly cheap ingredients.
I used to like Lindt and was disappointed to see they use palm oil in their chocolate instead of cocoa butter. Even worse is palm oil plantations are made by cutting down forests and displacing endangered animal species.
Cocoa butter gives a distinct mouthfeel because it has a sharply-defined melting point. If you want that mouthfeel, you need cocoa butter.
Lindt might not want that mouthfeel. That is a legit choice, not just to be cheap.
Other legit choices include suet, ghee, lard, and even corn oil. It all depends on the mouthfeel you want. Skipping the oil/fat entirely is also an option; wilder choices for holding candy together include: pectin, agar, egg white...
Heh, kinda like kraft singles being so named because they are no longer allowed to call themselves cheese.
My grandmother, who grew up during the depression, occasionally complained about the decline in the quality of sweets and chocolates. I used to think she was exaggerating a bit, but seeing the decline in quality in my time, going from bad to worse, it's easy to see what she was talking about.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that it has been a shame to see large companies move away from making proper chocolate bars just to maintain their bottom line, and I can only expect that this latest maneuver is in the same spirit.
Yeah germany should work :) Really each one really worth it, i am from austria originally and i cant eat anything than swiss chocolate anymore after a few years there.
We even made half-sugar doughnuts recently which were still delicious ( no topping or filling needed ).
So I reckon Nestle will just produce a slightly less bulky confectionery, for the same price of course.