Changing Out Sugar for Maple Syrup?

Your Maple Syrup Maven can't figure out who's behind the Ochef.com site, but there's lots of cooking information here.

Let's start with a question many of us have thought about: Are sugar, brown sugar, honey and maple syrup interchangeable in recipes?

Ochef says (not surprisingly), "no".

"First of all, consider the difference in weight. A cup of granulated sugar weighs 8 ounces. A cup of brown sugar weighs only 6 [ounces]. But a cup of maple syrup weighs 11 ounces and a cup of honey weighs 12 [ounces]."

"In addition, honey and maple syrup add moisture to a recipe, which can upset the texture of what you’re making."

Here are some of their substitution suggestions (see the whole answer for more info):

"# To use maple syrup in place of sugar in cooking, use 3/4 cup for every 1 cup of sugar.
# To use maple syrup in place of a cup of sugar in baking, use 3/4 cup, but decrease the total amount of liquid in the recipe by about 3 tablespoons for each cup of syrup you use.
# To use sugar in place of a cup of maple syrup, use 1-1/4 cups of sugar plus 1/4 cup more liquid."