All About Cooking With Dextrose

Is Dextrose Sugar?

Dextrose Monohydrate is a powdered form of Glucose. It is easily metabolised by every cell of your body since glucose is the basic energy source for every cell that all carbohydrates are broken down into before use by the body.

It is the good digestible half of sugar without the nasty Fructose. The chemical composition is one molecule of Glucose bonded to a water molecule. 

Dextrose Vs Sugar?

 When the average person hears sugar they think of table sugar which is Sucrose. Sucrose is one molecule of glucose bonded to one molecule of Fructose (ie it is 50% Fructose). It is the Fructose content that is the problem for our digestion. Honey (40%), maple syrup(40%), agave syrup (90%), molasses (40%), golden syrup (40%), corn syrup (55%) are all high in Fructose and should be avoided in general.

Why? What's so bad about fructose?

For in depth discussion on this question, it is helpful to watch some of the videos by Dr Robert Lustig.

Dr Robert Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist, working in the field for 32 years. He is very concerned about the rising rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome. The author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease rose to unexpected fame when his lecture on YouTube went viral "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" 

What Does It Look Like?

Dextrose powder is a white powder that looks similar to caster sugar. The granules are a little bit smaller and more slippery so that it doesn't seem to form clumps in an airtight container. You can buy it from Home-Brew beer suppliers in one or two kilogram bags, or in larger 5kg bags if you plan to do a lot of baking. Is it more expensive than sugar? Yes - but once you have broken your sugar addiction you won't be eating sweet things as frequently. 

Where Can I Buy Dextrose Powder?

In Australia, you can buy it from Home-Brew beer suppliers in one or two kilogram bags. I buy mine from The Country Brewer (www.countrybrewer.com.au). Is it more expensive than sugar? Yes - but once you have broken your sugar addiction you won't be eating sweet things as frequently. 

How Do You Cook With Dextrose?

Most recipes can substitute Dextrose for sugar. When baking with this new ingredient, you will find that it absorbs more of the wet ingredients than sugar, so the trick lies in adjusting the "normal" quantities of dry and wet ingredients to get the balance right. Luckily I have done a lot of the experimentation for you!

You will also find that it has a lower melting point than Sucrose or table sugar. This means that you will usually need to drop the oven temperature by about 10 degrees Celcius.

The only application that I have failed so far is in trying to make meringue. Dextrose just doesn't crisp up like sucrose when making meringue!

What Does It Taste Like?

To someone still addicted to sugar, it does not taste sweet at all, but is rather bland. The longer you are off the sugar though, the sweeter it tastes. To me it now tastes about 70-80% as sweet as I remember caster sugar tasting. The cookies, biscuits, cakes, muffins and custards that I bake taste sweet enough, while being able to taste the other ingredients a lot more. So raspberry muffins taste of raspberry and Shortbread tastes buttery.

Dextrose works very well for sweetening drinks and liquid-based foods such as custards and ice creams. You can generally swap one-for-one with sugar.

Which other sugars are safe?

Which sugars can be consumed without re-igniting your previous addiction? The following list helps you to stick to the good, digestible sugars in your diet. However, on food labels all types of sugar are lumped in together under the label "sugar". In dairy products, the first 5% of sugar will be lactose - which is safe - anything over 5% is likely to be added sucrose unless you are specifically told otherwise on the label. 

• Glucose
• Glucose Syrup
• Galactose
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Maltodextrin/Maltodextrose

Start cooking with dextrose...

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