Homemade Pancake Syrup

This recipe is so simple! It has only three ingredients, and can be made in less then five minutes.

Ingredients:
2 cups of sugar
1 3/4 cups of water
1 T of maple flavoring (also known as mapleine)

Directions:
Put sugar into pan and cover with water. Stir. Bring to boil and boil for 1 minute. Turn off the stove and mix in maple flavoring. Serve hot off the stove.

Cost to make homemade pancake syrup:

Sugar (1 lb):            $.75
Maple Flavoring:       $.50
Water:                   $0.00
Total:                    $1.25

This is a great alternative to pancake syrup from the store from a budget and nutrition perspective. Enjoy!

A few notes:


You can use as much as 3 cups of sugar, and you can also let the simple syrup boil for longer for a thicker pancake syrup. Also, you can start with 2 teaspoons of maple flavoring and see if that tastes mapley enough for you (3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon). Since you are making it you can customize it to the tastes of your family!

Boiling the simple syrup.

After the maple flavoring is mixed in.

Maple Syrup vs. Imitation Syrup

True confession time: I was raised on Log Cabin, Mrs. Buttersworth, and Aunt Jemima's Syrup (and the generic equivalent). I believed it was maple syrup. Then I met my husband, who was shocked that I not only ate and enjoyed Mrs. Buttersworth, but that I also thought that real maple syrup was too sweet. During the course of our dating, I saw the error of my ways and slowly retrained my taste buds to accept what real maple syrup tasted like.

So what is the difference between maple syrup and imitation maple syrup?


What we call fake or imitation maple syrup actually has a name- pancake syrup, waffle syrup, table syrup, or just syrup. This type of syrup is not allowed to have the word maple in the name because it does not contain any amount of maple in it. 

The ingredients found in real maple syrup is simply maple sap. Maple sap is simply water, sugar, and trace amounts of minerals (good ones like magnesium, zinc, and calcium).

On the other hand, the popular brands of pancake syrup usually contain the following ingredients: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, water, cellulose gum, caramel color, salt, sodium benzoate and sorbic acid (preservatives), artificial and natural flavors, sodium hexametaphosphate. Yikes! That's a lot of ingredients, most of which were developed in a laboratory.

Unlike the ingredients found in pancake syrup, the ingredients found in maple syrup don't require a Google search to know what you are eating. In case you were wondering that sodium hexablahblah is used as an ingredient in water softeners and detergents, which makes me as the question "Is that really safe to eat?" I think it's pretty safe to say that pancake syrup is not something you want to feed your family.

So, now that we know what's in these two syrups, let's look at how they are made.  I honestly wish I could find pictures of how pancake syrup is made, but like most of the science experiment food from large companies, there are none to be found. It's probably a two fold reason. The first is because there are trade secrets that they don't want to divulge, and the second is probably because nobody would want to eat it if they saw what it looked like before it came in the pretty little bottle.

We do know the process of how real maple syrup is made. It is first gathered from maple trees beginning in late February and lasts for about six weeks. In order for the sap to come out of the tree there needs to be a very specific temperature range: roughly 40 degrees during the day and 20 degrees at night. The temperature plays an important role in the movement of the sap within the tree.

The maple trees are tapped in the trunk with a spout to allow the syrup to drip into a container.  The syrup can be contained in a bucket, a jar, or even a plastic bag as seen below.

Sap dripping into a container. Taken in Holmes County, Ohio.

The maple sap then gets collected and put into an evaporator, where the water is boiled off and the sap is reduced into the syrup we know and love. It does need to get filtered to remove the sugar sand before it is finished and bottled.

Evaporator used in the production of maple syrup.

Here's a picture of a sugarbush along the road.

The choice is simple, maple syrup is superior in both taste and nutrition. There is however a drawback to the real stuff- price. Because of the limited area and time frame from which maple syrup can be harvested and the energy expenses incurred in the reduction process, it is noticeably more expensive then pancake syrup. It's probably at least double the cost, unless you buy it at Costco, Sam's, or BJ's.

For those on a more restricted budget, I have a recipe for homemade pancake syrup that has far less ingredients (and far scarier too!), which I will be sharing in a separate post.

Also, please note that the ingredients listed above for pancake syrup came directly from the Aunt Jemima website. Additionally, Log Cabin does have a pancake syrup made with no High Fructose Corn Syrup, but it still probably has the other scary ingredients in there.

Psoriasis Update

It's been a little more then month ago when I first talked about my psoriasis.  I figured it was time for an update.

Beginning February 1st, I began going to a tanning salon.  There are a whole host of studies that have been done showing the benefits of tanning to psoriasis. Tanning beds (with UVB lights) help the body to metabolize vitamin D, which helps to promote proper skin function. Vitamin D deficiency can also be linked to over 100 diseases (Tanning Truth). Real vitamin D is very important for our bodies.

The UV has been shown to kill T-Cells. The T-cells circulate the body looking for foreign antigens to attack. In the case of psoriasis they attack the body's own skin cells, and end up in the areas they are attacking (National Psoriasis Foundation). That is why psoriasis spots are very red. Exposing the T-Cells to UV rays not only reduces the redness significantly, but also slows down the growth of the scaling skin cells (International Eczema and Psoriasis Foundation) (Pathol 2008) (Pathol 2011).

This is not to say that tanning beds are the a silver bullet treatment or the answer to all of life's problems. There are always risks and concerns with things, and tanning beds are not exempt from that. Tanning beds have a risk of causing potential eye damage (that of course is if you look at the lights without protective eye wear), and links to melanoma. As far as the melanoma connection, there are just as many studies disproving links to UV exposure as there are proving them (Tanning Truth).

Here's the pictures from January 24, 2012. This was after switching my diet and using the topical lotions prescribed by the doctor. This also included taking vitamin D3 every morning orally:

 And here are the pictures from today. This is doing everything I was doing in January plus the tanning salon. I went twice a week for the month of February:

As you can see, there is a marked improvement in the visual appearance of my psoriasis on my hands. I had patches on the inside of both my elbows, a patch on my left shoulder, and some under my right arm. All those patches disappeared during the month of February.

As far as I am concerned, the positives of indoor tanning far outweigh the negatives.

Sheerly Simple

The home we purchased came with window dressings on all the windows- a standard practice.  All the dressings were not even close to my style. The grey room (the son's room) had a black canvas curtain that had several tabs and buttons so that it could be adjusted to different lengths and styles.  I replaced the curtain in that room with some spruced up sheers.

So here's what I did:

I purchased some sheers from Wal-Mart for $4.88. If you wanted plain sheer curtains you can't beat the price. Plain sheer fabric would cost more.

Then I pinned three rows of ribbons spaced out evenly on the curtain. I allowed an extra 6 inches past the top of the curtain to allow for the tab to hold the curtain up.  I then sewed them on each side of the ribbon to the sheer curtain. then I folded over the extra ribbon in half, so that the tab was three inches in length.

After I hung the curtain to see how it looked, I decided it needed a few more tabs, so I measured an additional 6 six-inch ribbons, and pinned and sewed them to the curtain- evenly spaced of course.

Mmmm Butter

After depleting the butter I purchased over the holidays, I decided it was time to tackle the butter making process. Here's what I did:

Pour 1 quart of raw cream into the KitchenAid mixer (whisk attachment), and set it on speed 4. I covered the bowl with a dampened cloth (to prevent buttermilk from flying in the whipping process), and I let it rip for about  30 minutes or so. I used the KitchenAid because my previous attempts in the food processor and blender did not work well. The food processor base become too hot and the butter that was forming became melted, and the blender just wasn't mixing the cream at the top as well as the cream at the bottom.

After the butter formed and the buttermilk was visible like so:

I began the process of rinsing the butter. I poured off the butermilk and rinsed with water repeatedly until the liquid that was poured off was clear.

Then I poured some water in, ran the mixer for 30 seconds to wash the butter some more, and then began pushing the butter together to squeeze out any remaining buttermilk.

Once I was satisfied that I had gotten out as much buttermilk as was physically possible, I separated out the butter into 2 ounce portions (4 tablespoons), wrapped it in parchment paper, and then froze it.

1 quart produced 1 pound of butter.

A Healthy Snack

Homemade trail mix.

My snacking habits were atrocious before I went gluten free, which is hard to believe for someone who eats organic food and does a lot of cooking from scratch. Now, my options are somewhat limited. To make it easier to have some readily accessible protein, I decided to make some trail mix. Here's what I put in my mix:

Cashews
Peanuts (one of my favorite nuts, and a cheap one too!)
Almonds
Dried cranberries
Shredded coconut
Sunflower seeds
Banana chips
Dried pineapple

I eyeballed the ingredients that I put in, putting more of the cheaper stuff in and less of the sweet stuff. The pineapple that I got at Farm Market was in fairly large chunks, so I cut it into smaller pieces. The beauty of making a trail mix at home is not only does it save you money and additives, but it also allows you to customize it.

Nuts and seeds are a good source of minerals- something we all need.  All of the nuts that I put in my mix have a higher amount of magnesium then some other nuts, such as pecans or walnuts. Magnesium, is very important because it helps the body detoxify, helps prevent allergies, and helps improve skin quality and relaxation (Mercola.com).

I added the coconut because the health benefits of coconut abound.Coconut oil is one of the most saturated fats that exists, which makes it highly stable (great for cooking), highly healthy, and great for weight loss. Coconut oil is also naturally antibacterial, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and antifungal, which makes it great for your gut too (Organicfacts.net). If you want to know more about coconut oil, I suggest picking up Sally Fallon's Eat Fat Lose Fat.

Hello Psoriasis, my new friend

Beginning in September of last year, I developed a rash on my hands. I thought it was just some odd type of rash that would eventually go away. I tried eczema cream, coconut oil, anti-fungal cream, and lots of lotion.The new year came, and the rash was still with me. In fact, it had spread to my shoulder. I decided it was time to see the dermatologist since nothing I tried over the counter had worked.

I was diagnosed with psoriasis. I felt like I was going to cry right then and there. During the time that I had been trying to get the rash to go away by myself I had done some research. While I didn't know all the specifics of psoriasis, I did know that it was a chronic condition and one of the things I did not want to be diagnosed by a doctor.

For those who don't know, psoriasis, while a skin condition, is actually an autoimmune disease. The dysfunction in my autoimmune system causes the skin cells to produce more rapidly then they should causing the rash. It most often shows up when individuals are in their twenties (although come to find out my dad was diagnosed as a child) and about 30% of those with psoriasis have arthritis as well.

Looking back on my life, I realize now that I have had psoriasis outbreaks before. They were just never this bad. In the past I've had little spots under my arms or in the crook of my arm. Last December I had a spot on my right hand. This year I have it on my shoulder, both hands, crooks of my arms, and under my right arm.

There are some triggers for psoriasis, such as cold weather, stress, beer, and smoking. Fortunately for me, two of those main triggers are not a problem to avoid.  In September at my brother's birthday party there was the perfect storm for a psoriasis flare up- had some Oktoberfest, had stress (car broke down on the highway in NJ), and was around cigarette smoke.

Below are pictures of my hands. Prior to the regime that the doctor put me on the spots were redder, drier, and a lot flakier. My right hand, especially, is looking really good.

Right hand, after 2 weeks and a few days of treatment.

Left hand, after 2 weeks and a few days of treatment.

There is also another trigger which most conventional doctors have not really recognized yet- gluten. There's a growing number of research linking either Celiac Disease or a gluten intolerance to individuals suffering from psoriasis.  I cut gluten out of my diet after Christmas, and did see an improvement in the rash. So, I am now staying gluten free. I can honestly say, other then for convenience, I don't miss traditional flour all that much.

The crazy part is that since I've been gluten free for almost a month now, some things don't taste like they used to. I find Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Pieces to be rather bland. That is nothing less then a good thing.

Now that the gluten free journey is just beginning I hope to post good GF recipes when I find them or develop them.

Hugs!