Invert Sugar substitute

Best substitute

Honey

Use the same amount by weight as the invert sugar you are replacing

Best for cookies and gingerbread

Different taste

Honey is the closest thing most kitchens have, because it is already mostly glucose and fructose. Swap it 1:1 by weight and expect a floral note plus noticeably faster browning, so drop the oven by about 15F or 10C. Golden syrup at 1:1 is nearly as good with a gentler caramel flavour instead of a floral one. If the invert sugar is there purely to stop crystals forming, as in ice cream, ganache or a poured glaze, light corn syrup or glucose syrup at 1:1 does that job just as well and tastes of almost nothing, though it is less sweet and holds less water so the ice cream scoops a little harder. You can also make your own: simmer 250 g sugar with 100 g water and a pinch of citric acid or cream of tartar at a bare simmer for 20 minutes, then cool.

Other invert sugar substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Golden syrup
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
Golden syrup is itself a partially inverted sugar syrup, which makes it a genuinely good stand-in.
What changes
It brings a light butterscotch flavour and pale amber colour rather than honey's floral edge, so it disappears easily into caramel, toffee, flapjacks and dark cakes. It browns faster than plain sugar but less aggressively than honey does.
Best for
caramels and toffee, flapjacks and traybakes, dark or spiced cakes, ganache
Easy to find in the UK, Australia and Canada and harder in the US, where light corn syrup is the usual shelf equivalent. Anything labelled invert syrup works the same way at the same ratio.
3Light corn syrup or glucose syrup
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
The right choice when you want invert sugar's technical behaviour with no flavour at all.
What changes
It reliably blocks crystal formation, so ganache stays glossy and ice cream stays smooth, and it browns much less than honey. The trade-off is that it is essentially all glucose rather than a glucose-and-fructose mix, so it is measurably less sweet and holds less water, which shows up as a slightly firmer, less scoopable ice cream and a marginally shorter-keeping cake.
Best for
ice cream and sorbet, ganache and glazes, macarons and Italian meringue, anything that must stay pale
Add roughly 10 percent more by weight if the recipe leaned on invert sugar for sweetness as well as texture. Glucose syrup is stiffer than corn syrup, so warm it briefly to make it pourable.
4Homemade invert sugar syrup
Close match
Use the same amount by weight for the finished syrup
The best answer if you have twenty minutes, because it is the actual thing rather than an approximation.
What changes
Combine 250 g granulated sugar, 100 g water and about 1/8 teaspoon citric acid or cream of tartar, bring to a simmer, then hold it at a bare simmer, uncovered and undisturbed, for 20 minutes before cooling. It comes out colourless to very faintly straw, tastes clean and neutral, and behaves identically to a bought tub.
Best for
ice cream, macarons, ganache, any recipe written around trimoline
Do not stir once it is simmering and do not let it take on colour, because browning means you have started making caramel instead. Store it in a clean jar at room temperature; it keeps for months because it is a saturated sugar syrup.
5Maple syrup
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume, and cut other liquid by about 2 tbsp per cup used
Workable but a bigger compromise.
What changes
Maple syrup is mostly plain sucrose rather than inverted sugars, so it is much thinner and wetter and does far less to prevent crystallisation. Where it does help is moisture, and the flavour is unmistakable, which is a plus in oatmeal cookies and a problem in anything meant to taste of vanilla or fruit.
Best for
cookies and quick breads, granola and flapjacks, rustic bakes where maple is welcome
Not a good choice for ice cream or ganache, where the whole point of invert sugar is crystal control and body. It also browns fast, so watch the oven.
6Plain granulated sugar plus a little extra liquid
Different texture
For every 100 g invert sugar, use 100 g sugar plus about 1 tbsp water
The honest least-bad option, and it matters that you know what you are giving up.
What changes
Sugar sweetens fine, so a cookie or cake made this way will be perfectly good, just a touch drier by the third day. What it cannot do is stop crystals, so ganache can turn grainy, a sugar glaze can dry cloudy and gritty, and ice cream will scoop hard and feel sandy on the tongue rather than smooth.
Best for
cookies, cakes and muffins, anything baked and eaten within a day or two
Do not take this route for ice cream, sorbet, ganache, nougat, fondant or a poured mirror glaze. In those recipes the invert sugar is doing structural work rather than sweetening, and plain sugar cannot cover for it.

What is Invert Sugar?

Invert Sugar is Invert sugar, sold as invert syrup, invert sugar syrup or under the brand name trimoline, is ordinary table sugar that has been split by gentle heat and a trace of acid into its two component sugars, glucose and fructose, giving a thick colourless syrup that is slightly sweeter than sugar, clings onto water, and will not crystallise.

Cooking tips

Invert sugar is roughly 20 to 30 percent sweeter than the same weight of granulated sugar, so converting the other way and replacing invert sugar with plain sugar gives a result that tastes slightly less sweet than intended.
Its real superpower in ice cream is lowering the freezing point, which keeps more of the mixture unfrozen at freezer temperature and is why good gelato scoops straight from the freezer. Corn syrup does this less, so a corn syrup version wants a few minutes on the counter before serving.
Because fructose browns at a lower temperature than sucrose, any recipe where you have swapped in honey or invert syrup needs a lower oven and an earlier check. That is a feature in gingerbread and a disaster in a pale sponge.
Never let a homemade batch take on colour. The moment straw turns to gold you have moved from invert syrup towards caramel, and both the flavour and the behaviour change.
In bread and enriched doughs invert sugar feeds yeast faster than granulated sugar does, so watch the dough rather than the clock or you will overproof it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave invert sugar out?

Only if it is a small proportion of the sweetener. In a cookie dough where invert sugar is one tablespoon alongside a cup of sugar, replacing it with the same weight of sugar plus a splash of water is fine. In ice cream, ganache, nougat or a mirror glaze it is doing structural work that plain sugar cannot do, and leaving it out gives you a grainy or hard result.

Is trimoline the same as invert sugar?

Yes. Trimoline is a brand of invert sugar paste used widely in professional kitchens, and recipes calling for trimoline, invert sugar, invert syrup or sucre inverti all mean the same ingredient. Everything listed here works for trimoline at the same ratio.

Is honey or corn syrup the better swap?

It depends which job matters more. Honey matches invert sugar's chemistry more closely, so it is better at holding moisture and sweetening, but it brings flavour and darkens the bake. Corn syrup or glucose syrup is flavourless and keeps things pale, which makes it better for ice cream, macarons and anything white, at the cost of a little sweetness and softness.

Can I make invert sugar with lemon juice instead of citric acid?

Yes. Use about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice in place of the pinch of citric acid for a 250 g sugar batch. It works because you only need a trace of acid to break sucrose apart, and that small amount of lemon flavour cooks off almost entirely. Cream of tartar works equally well.

Why does my ganache made without invert sugar look dull and feel grainy?

Sugar crystals have formed. Invert sugar and corn syrup both physically get in the way of sucrose crystals joining up, which is what keeps ganache glossy and smooth on the tongue. Adding a tablespoon of corn syrup, glucose or honey per 200 g of chocolate when you make it prevents this; once it has gone grainy, gently rewarming with a splash more cream sometimes rescues it.

Related substitutes

More sweeteners substitutes

Invert Sugar substitute

Other invert sugar substitutes

2Golden syrup

3Light corn syrup or glucose syrup

4Homemade invert sugar syrup

5Maple syrup

6Plain granulated sugar plus a little extra liquid