When you invert basic sugar or sucrose, what you are really doing is breaking down sucrose into two basic elements that make it up, the sugars glucose and fructose. Inverted sugar syrup is essentially a product produced, either unintentionally by adding specific ingredients to a recipe, or intentionally causing this chemical breakdown to occur to make a sugar syrup that has numerous advantages in baking.

Inverted sugar syrup is often made by using basic sugar syrup, also called simple syrup, which is a mix of water and sugar that is slowly cooked and then boiled for about a minute to produce liquid syrup. Sugar syrup can be made in varying degrees of thickness, so recipes for proportions of sugar to water will differ. To create inverted sugar syrup, you add an acid to simple syrup, in order to start the inversion process that will recompose the chemicals of sugar into their simpler component forms of glucose and fructose.

Inverted sugar syrup can also be naturally occurring. You’ll find that products like honey contain quite a bit of invert sugar. More often, people either buy commercially made syrup, or make it themselves by combining acids (lemon juice or cream of tartar are common) and simple syrup in a recipe. For instance, if you make jam, you’ll also create invert sugar by adding acids to sugar and water. At other times, making the syrup is an intentional process in order to produce certain baked goods.

In cooking, invert sugar syrup is preferred for recipes that are made better when sugar crystals are smaller. This can create an end product that is smoother and less crystalline, and it has particular applications in the making of different types of candy. For example, numerous fondant recipes call for inverted sugar syrup in order to create a much smoother product, and you may find some people prefer the syrup in various baked goods. Inverted sugar syrup is more hygroscopic, meaning it tends to attract water molecules more easily and retain greater moisture. It might therefore be used in place of traditional sugar in baked goods, particularly those that need to have a long shelf life.

Another principle of invert sugar syrup is its ability to stay liquid for longer periods of time. If it does begin to solidify or crystallize, it’s usually easily converted back to a liquid state by gently warming the syrup, or popping it in the microwave for about 15 seconds. You’ll note that if you refrigerate honey, it becomes hard, but you can bring honey back to the liquid state by the above methods. Sometimes merely removing the honey from the fridge and letting it warm up will bring it back to a liquid state.

If you don’t want to make your own inverted sugar syrup, the easiest place to find it is at cake decorating stores, or on the Internet. Some grocery stores may carry it, but since it’s application is primarily for frostings and candy, your best bet is a good baking supply or cake decorating store. The syrup is usually sold in jars of varying sizes.