In my opinion neither comes anywhere close to the glory of Tate and Lyle's, but they do for baking. If I'm not mistaken, the true golden syrup is made from sugar cane, whereas the Coop and Migros subsititues shown here are made from sugar beet. And neither is, of course, treacle.
And here's an article describing the differences, light and dark, and uses, and swapping in recipes.
Mine is very similar to this one but my mum’s handwritten version, I use oats rather than breadcrumbs as that’s how she always made it.
It is certainly sweet but not really any more so than flapjack. I don’t make it very often as hubby is diabetic but it is one of T’s favourites as it reminds him of grandma so it is a special occasion type of thing.
Ah thanks, never heard of it made with oats rather than breadcrumbs.
Yes, only make flapjacks as snacks for grandkids skiing packed lunches. Sadly treacle tart has egg, so not suitable for them as grandson highly allergic to egg.
Unless someone has an eggless recipe? That would be grand.
I used to work for Tate and Lyle at Silvertown, London. Refined sugar is identical regardless of whether it comes from beet or cane. It's called "refined", but when it comes from cane, it's just cleaned and all impurities drawn away. Some of those drawn away impurities are used to produce treacle and Lyle's Golden Syrup (green tin). The factory used to make supermarket own brands of Golden Syrup as well - but here's the thing: they made it starting with refined sugar.
I've checked, and you can make your own Golden Syrup and Treacle. Search for recipes online. It won't be exactly the same as that made during the cane refining process, but it looks to be not too far off.
Perhaps you're right that that's the reason for MusicChick's groan. If so, then what very odd behaviour of hers. Oh well, sigh.
Here's an interesting article which says that in their researched group, a significant difference (P < 0.05) was identified between beet and cane sugar sources when evaluated by aroma-only and taste and aroma without nose clips. However, there was no difference when tasted with nose clips.
Perhaps that's the answer to my question addressed to Tom, about why, if there is no difference, they taste different. Since I've always detected a difference, perhaps it is merely that I noticed that they smell different, and this gave me the convincing impression that they taste different.