treacle

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Treacle is the generic name for any syrup made during the refining of sugar cane^[1] and is defined as "uncrystallized syrup produced in refining sugar".^[2] Treacle is used chiefly in cooking as a form of sweetener or condiment.

The most common forms of Treacle are the pale syrup that is also known as golden syrup and the darker syrup that is usually referred to as dark treacle or black treacle. Dark treacle has a distinctively strong flavour, slightly bitter, and a richer colour than golden syrup, yet not as dark as molasses. Golden syrup is the main sweetener in the Treacle Tart.

History

Historically, the Middle English term triacle^[3] was used by herbalists and apothecaries to describe a medicine (also called theriac or theriaca) — composed of many ingredients — that was used as an antidote treatment for poisons, snakebites or various ailments.^[2]

In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 7, the Dormouse tells a story of Elsie, Lacie and Tilly living at the bottom of a well, which confuses Alice, who interrupts to ask. "The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, 'It was a treacle-well.'" When Alice remonstrated, she was stopped by the Mad Hatter's analogy: "You can draw water out of a water-well, so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well." "Alice said very humbly. "I won't interrupt you again. I dare say there may be one".^[4]

Production

Treacle is made from syrups that remain after sugar is removed from the refining process. The main object of refining is to increase the purity of all low-grade raw sugars before these are dissolved, so that the resulting liquor may contain the minimum of dissolved non-sugars to be removed by the bone-char treatment. The dark-coloured washings are treated separately from the liquor made by dissolving the affined sugar in water, and are not treated with bone-char. They are boiled to grain in a vacuum pan, forming a low-grade massecuite which is cured in centrifugals, and yields a brown sugar, and a fluid by-product—treacle.^[5]

See also

• Treacle mining
• Treacle sponge pudding
• Venice treacle, also known as Treacle of Andromachus

References

External links

• Old 'Recipes4us' page "Treacle Origin"
• CSR Sugar company of Australia - Treacle
• Sugar Australia website - refiner and marketer for CSR limited.