How to Make "Maple Syrup" Using Fenugreek Seeds (IT ACTUALLY WORKED!) - Spice Finds

[Music] oh maple syrup what could be better than taking tree blood concentrating it down into a delicious goo and then pouring that goo onto pancakes not much the unfortunate thing though is that maple syrup is really really really expensive it takes 40 gallons of tree sap to produce just one gallon of maple syrup this guy cost me over 10 bucks just for a little thing that's why stuff like this exists this is not maple syrup this is an insult to trees what this is is corn syrup artificial coloring and artificial flavoring but what i don't understand is why it has to be one of two extremes why does it have to be something that's really really delicious or something that is really really terrible so today i'm going to attempt to find a middle ground between these two products and i'm going to do that by using fenugreek seeds fenugreek are actually the seeds of a plant that is part of the pea family in fact the little pods that these seeds come from look a little bit like regular snow peas fenugreek is not something that's easy to find at least where i live here in the united states however it is very very popular in a lot of other countries it's especially popular in the indian subcontinent where it's used in a lot of curries it's used in the middle east a lot it's used in africa there's use a lot of spice blends in certain parts of europe fenugreek is a really interesting spice it's got a really unique flavor and it can be used to make a lot of really tasty dishes so i recommend picking it up playing with it but today i'm going to focus just on one peculiar aspect about fenugreek and that has to do with what it has to do with maple syrup and to get into this deeply we're going to have to do some experimenting so let's go to the kitchen so fenugreek seeds are sometimes used to make an artificial maple syrup extract and that is because they contain a chemical compound that is similar in scent to maple syrup and that compound is i believe sotalan probably saying that wrong and sotolan is such a powerful compound that if you eat like a whole bunch of indian food you may notice that you start to smell like maple syrup you start getting this kind of sweet smell and that is because the sodaland will actually emanate out of your pores with your sweat and it also can make your pee smell that may sound like a good time to you however there is a little bit of a concern with this because there is actually a disorder known as maple syrup urine disease it means that your body is not breaking down all the amino acids properly or something like that and as a result it makes your pee smell like maple syrup okay and if you are pregnant and you have maple syrup urine disease it can cause birth defects so if you go to the doctor because you're pregnant and they give you a urinalysis and they notice that there is a maple syrup smell to it it's a cause for alarm because it might mean that you have maple syrup uh urine disease fenugreek can give you a false positive on that it still gives you the same sort of result as maple syrup urine disease however it's not because of a disorder it's because you just ate a whole bunch of fenugreek seeds seems like it might actually be a rare occurrence however one thing that people like fenugreek for is a purported medical benefit of increasing lactation so if you are a mom-to-be you might be taking a supplement for increased lactation and that might include fenugreek seeds and that fenugreek seeds might cause your urine to smell like maple syrup and that might be a cause for alarm for your doctor so for me and i'm sure a lot of you this sounds fantastic maple syrup smelling urine wonderful but if you're pregnant you might want to exercise some caution so making extracts is very easy to do and it's something that i've done on this channel in the past um for instance this is some vanilla extract that i made you just take some vanilla pods and you top it off with vodka and after a few months the vodka will extract some of the flavor from those pods that's all that vanilla extract is and what's great about stuff like this is that you can decant the extract out of this put it in a bottle and then top it off this is the second time that i've filled this up to the top and it's not even all the way done yet you can see it's pretty dark you can get a lot of flavor out of very aromatic spices like vanilla and you can do something like that also with fenugreek if you were to put vodka in this it would extract flavors out of it however this is something that people have tried to do in the past and failed because fenugreek is not maple okay it's not maple syrup this is something that contains a compound that is similar to maple syrup but that's not all that's in here there are more flavors in here and what those flavors are this is probably very difficult to see but i've got one fenugreek seed right there let me tell you what this tastes like they're very hard okay and although i do detect a little bit of a maple syrup flavor in there it also tastes a little bit like like a pea and it's kind of bitter and a little bit like celery seed so yeah one of those flavors in there is what i want i don't want the other ones and what i see recommended online for making desserts with fenugreek and some dishes with fenugreek is that people will add water in order to kind of leech out some of the bitter compounds that are in there so i'm going to take half a cup of fenugreek seeds fill that jar up with water and leave it out overnight wow i i did not expect this to happen it's been about 12 hours and those fenugreek seeds really really puffed up it quadrupled in size so my big question now is is this going to smell like maple syrup and is that liquid off the top going to be like maple syrup probably not it smells a little sweet vaguely like maple syrup but mostly like peas some of the websites that tout the medicinal benefits of fenugreek say that the liquid that comes out of this is good for you so see what see what this tastes like oh oh no really really bitter really better um so yeah good good to that's the part i'm getting rid of so i take that as a good thing right i'm going to strain the seeds then i'm going to rinse them out a few times with water but i get a little bit more of that bitterness out and then i'm going to dry them out again okay so i'm going to lay them out on a baking sheet put them back into the oven on a very low temperature i have it set to 170 just so they can get some of that water to evaporate okay it's been about an hour and a half and these fenugreek seeds are now pretty dry they're not as dry as how they were when i started but they are dry enough to toast and toast i will i'm going to actually kick up the heat on the oven to about 350 degrees and i'm going to check on them like every 10 minutes or so until they turn a nice golden brown and maybe just maybe i won't burn them by the way my apartment right now just reeks of maple syrup so i think i'm doing something right it's definitely different still kind of bitter maybe not as bitter and it's got a flavor kind of like um beanie popcorn it's weird because it's like the maple syrup is in the air and like when you put it in your mouth and you taste it it doesn't really initially taste like maple syrup but i'm starting to feel like a little bit of an aftertaste of maple syrup so i don't know if this is going to work or not like the problem here is i'm going to take this i'm going to make an extract out of it and in the end you gotta have to hope that what gets extracted is going to be the flavor that i want so i'm not sure if it's going to work but here's what we're going to do i'm going to take these seeds i'm going to place them in a jar and then i'm going to add vodka to the top of the jar and let this sit until it is done and act as a control group i'm going to also do this with just plain seeds that have not been soaked or toasted or anything maybe this is all a waste of time we'll find out okay it has been one whole week and my extracts definitely got a lot darker and my apartment still smells like a sugar shack so this stuff is really really strong i haven't even opened these yet but even with the jars closed with the lid on this one smells just like maple syrup this one not so much so i think i did something right so i can get this one off this one i can't get it open for the life of me um so here's a kitchen hack that i learned from my grandmother can't open a jar do this i don't know why it works but it works okay the regular fenugreek and of course it it puffed up a lot so these things are drunk and it smells like not very good it does have a little bit of the maple syrup smell but it also has like a vegetal smell to it that it's kind of like beany okay and next the one that got toasted it doesn't smell like maple syrup it did when i had the lid on it smells kind of like like a toasted sesame seed maybe it's not like an olfactory sort of thing maybe it's more like a taste thing the flavor of that is bitter and like burnt toast so maybe this didn't work oh oh hold on it here's the thing with this the initial taste isn't maple syrup the aftertaste is i'm tasting it now like uh like a minute has gone by and now i'm starting to taste it it's not just maple syrup though it's also like like caramel like a caramel and maple syrup sort of taste it's there but it's not the initial taste you get i don't know how that's going to work uh hopefully you know once i mix this with like sugar and stuff the flavor that i want will come out more but as it is not exactly what i was hoping for but it is still there so i'm going to move forward let's see and out of curiosity let's uh try a little bit of this the smell on it is not good definitely not good like a bitter cabbage kind of taste a little like celery but again the aftertaste is maple syrup so i think the one that i toasted is going to be better because the initial flavor is more pleasant even though they both do have that maple syrup coming in at the at the end there so let's see what happens with the toasted one so i think this extract is plenty strong if it were to be in here any longer it might get some of that bitterness that i don't want so i'm actually going to filter out the the seeds here so there you have it the fenugreek extract whenever you need a little maple flavor this should do it and this would be good as something to put in like a tea or it's like some coffee or something in baked goods if you want to add a little bit of maple flavor to something this should do it this episode is sponsored by me see that i've got t-shirts i sell these over on my website which i've linked in the description below that's it back to the video if i wanted to do this in a really quick way i would just take some of this and mix it with corn syrup and that would give me basically this or something like this the next step after that would be to make like a simple syrup take some sugar take some water boil it add some of that extract to it and then you'd have a quick maple syrup however i think in order to replicate maple syrup i need to create more depth to it okay i want but more rich flavor than just like sugar water and that's why i'm going to attempt to make my own golden syrup golden syrup is something that i've talked about in the past i used it in my icelandic thunder bread recipe and it is really really good stuff it's popular in like europe and european countries you'll find it but here where i live in the us it is not a common thing i can't get it at the markets where i live so i'm going to attempt to make it or at least i'm going to make an approximation of it because how you make real golden syrup is like a big production it's made from refining sugar cane into an invert sugar whatever that means but you can make a close approximation of it by taking sugar and water and a little bit of lemon and cooking it down and what's good about this is that it's going to actually like caramelize that sugar a little bit put a little bit more flavor into it and then i think it will have the depth that i'm looking for i hope [Applause] [Music] so the reason why i add the lemon to it is if you don't there's a good chance that this is going to crystallize that's a concern usually but it's extra concerning if i'm using extract which i'm going to be adding later if you add alcohol to a syrup it's more likely to crystallize [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't throw these things away this is great you can actually put that with a cup of tea so it's cooled down looks good it's got a nice color to it it's uh the right consistency but it's still warm and i think once this cools down it's going to get too thick so i'm going to throw a little bit of water in just like i don't know like a tablespoon or something and next i'm going to add the extract i don't know how much of the extract to add so first i'm going to try a little bit of the syrup on its own that's pretty good it's not exactly like golden syrup golden syrup has more of a caramel sort of flavor to it this one is a little bit milder not as rich but still pretty good and the lemon taste in there is it's there but it's slight i was worried that that would overpower the syrup it doesn't i think once i add the extracts that'll get rid of it i'm going to start with one teaspoon of the maple extract and see what that does the initial taste is more like honey oddly and um now i'm getting some of the maple okay i think i'm going to add some more and another thing that i saw some recipes for artificial maple syrup too is they put a little vanilla in it so we're gonna do two teaspoons of the maple extract and one teaspoon of vanilla extract okay moment of truth let's try it i think this is gonna be it don't think we're gonna monkey around with it anymore smells like maple syrup it worked oh my god it worked i wasn't expecting that to work my worried is that this was going to have a vegetal taste like the fenugreek has that celery seed sort of taste it doesn't that it's gone i'm getting a maple taste without the bitterness without that vegetal taste so of course the next step is to use it so i'm going to bottle this up and then i'm going to make pancakes to mark this occasion i got a very special bottle mrs butterworth has never had such a delicious syrup inside her uh wait what so my syrup ended up being a little too thick i was afraid that was gonna happen and it happened so what i did is i took my bottle of fenugreek syrup i heated it up and then i added some boiling water into the bottle and then mix it up really well so now it's fixed but if i were to do this again i would do that when i was making it i would add like a half a cup of water maybe in addition to the one and one-fourth that i put in there earlier [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] but now for the true test i'm going to take the three syrups the regular maple syrup my maple syrup and then the other one which um shall not be named i'm going to compare the three of them first the plain regular maple syrup there it is very thin nice dark color pretty good gotta admit this is the cheapest maple syrup that they had it's grade a but grade a maple syrup doesn't mean anything all maple syrup can be listed as grade a there's no such thing as a grade b anymore used to be not anymore so that's a cheap maple syrup still tastes delicious it's got a little bit of like a toasty flavor to it and of course a maple flavor and yeah nice and sweet it's maple syrup next let's try the corn syrup based maple syrup quote unquote and this one is a lot thicker that's for sure i mean this stuff is fine for what it is for me it's kind of like a little bit nostalgic it makes me think about like eating at a waffle house you know at a waffle house if you were to put regular maple syrup and you would put like real butter instead of margarine on your waffle at waffle house it just wouldn't be right you know it needs to be this sort of level of artificial for it to be good you know there's something there's something nostalgic about having that sort of flavor at a diner or like a fast food place or something um and for that purpose it's fine it's just it isn't maple syrup you know it's reminiscent of it but it's got more of like a buttery taste it's got more of a sweet taste and the the texture is off you know like real maple syrup is kind of thin it's not really syrupy this is like really thick and sticky and finally my fenugreek syrup it it does taste like maple syrup i mean initially it doesn't initially it tastes kind of like honey like a vanilla honey which is not a bad thing and then you wait like 10 20 seconds and then you get this maple taste which is really weird but um you know it works i think the vanilla in there is important because that gives you a maple syrup syrup-ish sort of flavor before the actual maple taste hits you or the fenugreek taste hits you so i think you need that to kind of like round out the flavor but if you keep eating the pancakes but as you go along that like first bite won't be an issue anymore like yeah after the first 10 seconds you're eating maple syrup i'd say this isn't quite as good as real maple syrup but it's a close approximation it's definitely better and actually more like maple syrup than the corn syrup based one and what i like about this one compared to the corn syrup based one is that this one is um although i think it is sweeter in a way than real maple syrup it's not like sickly sweet and i think corn syrup has that issue like if you eat a lot of it i feel kind of like it's just like it's too sweet there's something heavy about it this one is a little bit lighter all things considered i think making this was a big success i would totally do this again it's a bit time consuming to go through all this but it's fun you know making extracts is kind of fun and like seeing what sort of flavors you can get it i enjoy doing that and i think this is something that wouldn't be like so much of a hassle to do it just takes some time and if you do that it tastes good it's dirt cheap and you can make a lot of it and it stays for a while like i don't have to make that extract again like if i want to make more syrup i just go through the process again of making syrup and there you go so i think that's about it this has showed me that you don't need to go to one extreme or the other maple syrup or corn syrup you can go right down the middle with fenugreek syrup this was interesting to do i hope you thought it was interesting and if there's any other sort of spice or fruit sort of experiments you would like me to try let me know down below and i will see you all next time i would like to give a big shout out to lofty rex and smartereveryday they are mega patrons over on patreon.com patreon.com is basically how i can afford to go on all the adventures i do on this channel so if you enjoy my series and you want to help support me check out the link in the description below if you don't want to go on patreon i also have t-shirts for sale like this one here the durian anatomy shirt that is available on my website which i also put in the description below thanks so much everybody see you next time

Channel: Weird Explorer

Views: 59,790

Keywords: fenugreek syrup, fenugreek extract, methi, fenugreek dessert, helba, shanbalileh, Trigonella, Trigonella foenum-graecum, حلبة, hilbah, hilbeh, hilba, halba, חילבה, sotolon, artificial maple, maple extract, pancake syrup, syrup recipe, maple syrup urine disease, fenugreek supplements, how to make maple syrup, maple syrup recipe, copycat recipe, pancake recipe, how to make pancake syrup, pancake syrup recipe

Id: 7w7v0PjF4iA

Length: 25min 27sec (1527 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2022