Liquid Glucose in a Cake

Our answer

Liquid glucose, often referred to as glucose syrup, is a liquid form of simple sugar. It tends to keep products soft and moist so is often used in icings (such as royal icing) to stop them from becoming hard and sometimes in baking to keep products soft and moist. In most domestic baking it would be more common to use invert sugars such as golden syrup, corn syrup or clear/runny honey to add moisture to baked goods (invert sugars usually contain glucose and also fructose). These products are easier to find and are usually sold in larger quantities than liquid glucose. Liquid glucose used to be sold only in pharmacies but now it is often sold by cake decorating specialists or in the baking section in supermarkets.

As the liquid glucose is a sugar it would normally be added to the cake whenever any other sugar is added. For a classic cake recipe it would be at the beginning, when butter and sugar are creamed together. If the cake is made by melting ingredients together then the glucose would be added to the melting mixture.

We would suggest that you try Nigella's Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit Cake from Christmas (p180). This contains honey instead of liquid glucose and is very easy to make.