Sweetening Acidic Fruits such as Gooseberries

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I grew up in an age where stewed fruit with lots of added sugar was a norm. Somewhere along the line, adding more sugar than necessary to food became almost a crime and for years I didn't eat rhubarb, gooseberries or stewed apple because they required too much sugar to taste nice.

Forward many years to now when my gooseberry bush, planted several years ago, is flourishing. They are nice gooseberries and quite sweet if left until now to pick, they are not dessert gooseberries. Every year I struggle to make them taste nice, I think just because I don't add enough sugar. Yesterday I made a crumble for GD. I warmed the gooseberries with sugar first and it looked lovely. Of course, gooseberries are slightly tart but usually, with crumble and custard, delightfully so. This was a little too tart to be delightful even though the raw fruit seemed quite sweet. I have never regained the art of making puddings with acidic fruit taste nice. I have tried adding a pinch of bicarb (which I have a feeling destroys nutrients) to dispel some of the acidity, we used to add sweet cicely leaves, I don't want to add artificial sweeteners I have used elderflower cordial. The fact is, I no longer have any idea how much sugar to add, I just know it seems a lot. Is there guideline?

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Not done it with gooseberries but a little bicarbonate to neutralise the acid really works with rhubarb, cutting down the sugar
needed, and is said to work with gooseberries - I can’t remember quantities but it wasn’t much and there are probably instructions out on the internet

[MagicMarmite Profile]

I'm not sure what you mean.
Guidelines for recipes, or guidelines for dietary reasons?
If it's recipes, I've no clue, but when it comes to dietary stuff, I'd ignore it and use as much as you want to make it taste good.

[Suelle Profile Website]

If you read a few recipes, the ratio of sugar to fruit varies so much that I don't think your question can be answered.

My own estimate is that I use around 50g sugar per 500g fruit, but I really like a tart flavour.

Delia uses 110g sugar with 900g fruit for both her gooseberry and rhubarb crumble recipes.

Phil Vickery suggests 100-175 g sugar for a similar amount of fruit to Delia's recipe.

Riverford (the organic food suppliers) have a gooseberry crumble recipe online which only sweetens 500g fruit with orange juice!

If pre-cooking, I often use a smaller amount to cook the fruit, then add more to taste if necessary, but you can't do this in things like crumbles or pies if you're using raw fruit.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Thank you both. I agree that it is harder if making something with uncooked or only partially cooked fruit! Maybe I will just cook it in future so I can adjust it but even then it's really useful to have seen those guidelines Suelle, I think one must just enjoy the short fruit season and go for it. I do like gooseberries and rhubarb quite tart but both GD and I were making faces with this one. Goodness knows what it'd have been like just sweetened with orange juice!

I do think bicarb helps - we were taught at school never to add bicarb to fruit or veg as it destroyed some of the vitamin content - I wonder how true that is.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I think you aren’t supposed to add bicarbonate to green veg to preserve that colour as it is supposed break down the vitamins - it makes them slimy and soapy anyway. But I don’t think neutralising a bit of acid will spoil the vitamin content of fruit

[liketocook Profile]

In my old notebook which holds recipes passed down to me by my Grans and Mum for rhubarb or gooseberries they used 4oz sugar to 1lb of fruit and I've always stuck with that. I don't have a hugely sweet tooth but don't like it too tart either and that seems to be just right for my taste.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

I don't know if this helps or not. But when I add sweetness to acidic fruits, I use a mild runny honey not sugar.
It tends to mellow the fruit for us, without an overly sweetened sugariness. (Huh?) I hope you understand what I mean.

I'd use 3 - 4 tablespoons for a crumble serving.

I have got a set-texture honey from a bee farm in the cupboard but it is overpowering dressings and other things with an unpleasantness. I'm going to have to get rid of it and stick with supermarket brands for a nicer taste.

I thought honey didn't go off?

[smitch Profile]

I use golden syrup to sweeten rhubarb, my mum always did so I’ve followed suit. I never measure it, just add to taste.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

In my old notebook which holds recipes passed down to me by my Grans and Mum for rhubarb or gooseberries they used 4oz sugar to 1lb of fruit and I've always stuck with that. I don't have a hugely sweet tooth but don't like it too tart either and that seems to be just right for my taste.

That's interesting. I baulk at using that amount of sugar these days but that sounds the sort of amount my family traditionally used.

I like the syrup and honey ideas too. As for the flavour of honey, I've had some kinds which I thought were really horrible but others seem to like. I doubt it's 'off', it usually depends on the flowers that the bees visited.

[jeral Profile]

I tend now to equalise the taste with little or more sugar in custard. If the fruit itself is sweetened, an unsweetened cream is sufficient. Meaning it took me a while to figure out why things weren't right until I started adding back some of the sugar I'd cut out.

That said, dates are really sweet and so is tinned fruit so I'm not averse to mixing fresh and tinned to ease the tartness where it suits.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

I tend to use elderflower cordial, but that of course is sweetening with sugar. Raymond Blanc has dabbled with Stevia - it's a sweet tasting substance extracted from a plant, no more or less artificial than sugar - but I've never successfully counteracted acidity with it. Sweet cicely of course, but there was something else in the back of my mind that's supposed to do the same job. Can't recall it at the moment. I just accept that sugar in some form is needed.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Stevia is odd, because it works by fooling your taste buds

Some people find it really good, but while I find it ok with rhubarb it has to me a distinct, unpleasant, odour and aftertaste which just isn’t noticeable to some people.

[smitch Profile]

I'm not keen on stevia either. I tried a sparkling fruit drink at my parents' house yesterday and it tasted unpleasant to me.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I think stevia really shows up with citrus, I find it quite nasty

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I don't mind Stevia as much as other alternative sweeteners and have used it quite a bit. You certainly need less. I haven't tried it with citrus.

I agree BM that it may not counteract acidity in the way that a lot of sugar seems to. Do tell if you think of the thing that isn't Sweet Cicely! I haven't got any of the latter in the garden.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

It's not coming back to me. There is of course, always that stuff you can eat that blocks your ability to taste acidity. I think it's marketed as 'miracle berry' but I remember seeing it on QI a few years ago. There was a guy on our Antarctic trip trying to flog it. The big demo is to eat a lemon after taking one of these, but of course lemons are full of sugar so are sweet if the taste of the acidity is blocked. I heard once that there is more sugar in a lemon than a peach, don't know if that's true but it sounds plausible.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Fascinating! I am curious to know why the gooseberries on my gooseberry bush taste relatively sweet when eaten from the bush and as tart as can be when cooked!

[karadekoolaid Profile]

I think that, when it comes down to the line, we add as much (or less) sugar as we feel is right for our taste. Rhubarb, gooseberries, tamarind, lemons, redcurrants , are all fruits which make your teeth squeak if you eat them without sugar; but that´s the joy of them, isn´t it? If I do a Rhubarb dish, for example, I want that extreme tartness to shine through, so I often use less, rather than more, sugar.
Ten years or so ago, I had a visit from Tate & Lyle Latin-America. They wanted me to experiment with " low sugar" chutneys/jams/marmalades, etc., for people on diets, those with diabetes and, of course, to promote their fructose and sucralose (Splenda). The first thing I did was to call a medical friend who is a specialist in diabetes. After thinking a bit, he said " Well fructose is still a sugar - and it´s about half as dangerous to a diabetic as sugar, Sucralose is 600 times stronger, so imagine how little you need. Stevia is a glycoside - but it´s between 50-200 times more potent than sugar. They´re all sugars!"
I tasted a tiny bit of sucralose, the sugary flavour stayed with me for about 30 minutes, just as the capsaicin "burn" from a Trinidad Scorpion would stay.
Conclusion? Use what tastes good to you.
Footnote: the strawberry jam with fructose was good. The same with sucralose was absolutely appalling, and developed mould after 4 days!!

[Badger's Mate Profile]

They're not all sugars. Fructose is a sugar, hence it makes a reasonable jam. The others are just compounds that taste sweet, rather sweeter than sugar. Chemically, they are not classified as sugars and do not behave the same way. They don't (AFAIK) cause a response from insulin. A tiny bit of either Sucralose or Stevia might sweeten fruit similarly to sugar (although some people taste it differently) but can't be used as a direct sub for jam making. You won't get the set or the preservation, which I've always assumed (rightly or wrongly) was due to the high solute concentration.