Malic Acid substitute

Substitutes for Malic Acid with ratios

1. 2Tartaric acid

   Different taste

   Use ¾ tsp tartaric acid for every 1 tsp malic acid

   The grape acid, sold as tartaric acid powder or wine acid, and the sourest of the three common powders.

   What changes

   Best for

   hard candy, sherbet powder, Turkish delight, sour dusting

   Tartaric is the sharpest and cleanest of the three, with a dry wine-like sourness and none of malic's fruity green-apple edge. Use a little less. In a hard candy or a sherbet it is arguably better than malic because the sourness is so immediate. In a chewy sour sweet it is worse, because the whole appeal of malic is that the sourness will not let go and tartaric is gone in a second.

2. 3Citric acid with freeze-dried apple powder

   Different texture

   Use ¾ tsp citric acid + 1 tsp freeze-dried apple, blitzed to powder for every 1 tsp malic acid

   A two-part fix that covers both the sourness and the apple character malic carries.

   What changes

   Best for

   sour apple sweets, sour powders, rimming sugar, homemade sour spray

   Malic acid does not just taste sour, it tastes faintly of unripe apple, which is why sour apple candy tastes of apple even when there is no apple in it. Grinding freeze-dried apple slices to a powder and blending them with citric acid gets you much closer than citric alone. The mix is a little cloudier and slightly sweeter, and it will clump faster because dried fruit powder holds moisture, so make it in small batches.

3. 4Cream of tartar

   Taste and texture differ

   Use 2 tsp cream of tartar for every 1 tsp malic acid

   A weak powdered acid most kitchens already have in the baking cupboard.

   What changes

   Best for

   mild acidity in baking, stabilising egg whites, stopping sugar crystallising

   This is the pantry option, and you should know its limits before you commit a batch of sweets to it. Cream of tartar is roughly a third to a half as acidic spoon for spoon and it tastes chalky rather than sour, so a sour powder made with it is a disappointment: mildly tangy, slightly gritty, with none of the pucker. Where the acid is doing a structural job rather than a flavour job it works fine.

4. 5Lemon or lime juice

   Taste and texture differ

   Use 3 tbsp lemon or lime juice for every 1 tsp malic acid

   Liquid acid for anything wet enough to take an extra 45 ml.

   What changes

   Best for

   drinks, sauces, marinades, sorbet and granita

   Only useful when the recipe can absorb the liquid, which rules out dry blends and hard candy at the crack stage. The flavour goes clearly citrus, which is often an improvement in a drink and wrong in a green apple sweet. Lime is sharper and slightly more bitter than lemon and gets a bit closer to malic's persistence.