Vegetable glycerine

Glycérine végétale

What it is

Scheele found it in 1779 by boiling olive oil with lead oxide, and Chevreul later named it from glykys, sweet. Every fat in the kitchen is three fatty acids hung on one glycerol backbone - this is the backbone, sold on its own.

In the kitchen

One to two percent of the total weight in a sorbet lowers the freezing point enough to keep it scoopable straight from the freezer; past three percent it will not set firm at all. Five percent in a fruit leather keeps it bending instead of cracking.

Goes with

White sugar Glucose syrup Raspberry Strawberry Mango Apricot Lemon Dark chocolate

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