Glucose

Glucose is a simple sugar, milder in sweetness than the sucrose in ordinary white sugar, and it is sold for baking and confectionery. It belongs to the sugar collection with caster and icing sugar. The vanilla version saves a step in sweet doughs and creams, where the flavouring would otherwise go in separately.

Bakers use a little glucose in cake batters, sweet breads and cookies to keep them soft for longer, and in icing, ganache and fudge to stop the sugar crystallising into a grainy texture. In Eastern European kitchens it goes into cozonac, the plaited Easter bread, and into cream fillings for layered cakes. It can also be stirred into a jug of lemon squash or homemade sherbet.

Replace only part of the sugar in a recipe with glucose, a quarter at most, or cakes can turn dense and brown too fast. Once opened, fold the bag down tightly and store it in a sealed tub, as glucose draws in moisture from the air even more readily than sugar does.