Corn Syrup

Corn syrup, a starch extract from the corn kernels chemically treated to produce a sweet syrup, has been made in North America for 140 years or so. Food technologists can now do very sophisticated things and have ways of making corn syrup more or less sweet, but also – significantly – more or less viscous.

If you look on the wrappers of many sweets you will see corn syrup listed as an ingredient and this is because it gives that popular chewy texture. The viscous aspect of modified corn syrup can be produced without any sweetness at all, so giving confectioners the opportunity to have malleability and stretch without excessive sweetness. If you want to use corn syrup as a sweetening alternative to sugar, there are no particular benefits since it is synthesized glucose and maltose, the things we taste as sweet on the tongue – sugar, in other words.