Pancake syrup is usually corn syrup with flavoring added. Federal rules treat it as a separate food called table syrup, and they allow a long list of ingredients in it. Pure maple syrup is a different product: all of its sugar has to come from maple sap.
The short answer
Pick up a bottle of pancake syrup and read the back. The Vermont Maple Sugar Makers' Association sums up what you'll generally find: flavored corn syrup, with no real maple in it. The exact recipe changes from bottle to bottle, so the ingredient list is the only way to know for sure.
What the rules allow
In the US, pancake syrup falls under a federal standard for table syrup. Under that standard, a table syrup is a liquid made from one or more sweeteners, and at least 65 percent of it by weight has to be sweetener solids. Water can be added.
On top of the sweeteners, the standard allows:
- Natural and artificial flavorings
- Color additives
- Thickeners, which the rule calls viscosity adjusting agents
- Preservatives
- Salt
- Emulsifiers and stabilizers
- Butter, or other edible fats and oils
- Honey or maple syrup, as one of the sweeteners
None of these are required. They're options, which is why two bottles of pancake syrup can have very different labels.
Where the corn comes in
Corn syrup starts as corn starch, which the Food and Drug Administration describes as a chain of glucose molecules. Break the chain apart and you get corn syrup, which is essentially glucose. It's a sweetener, and sweeteners are what the table syrup standard is built around. Our piece on maple syrup vs. corn syrup goes deeper, high fructose corn syrup included.
What it's called on the shelf
The standard lets the product be sold as table syrup, pancake syrup, waffle syrup, or pancake and waffle syrup. What it can't be called is maple syrup. That name belongs to a different standard. Does that make pancake syrup fake maple syrup? We answer that in real maple syrup vs. pancake syrup.
A pancake syrup's label can show a flavor, in words or in a picture, only if that's the main flavor you taste. If the flavor shown is maple, real maple syrup has to make up at least 10 percent of the bottle by weight. We go through the wording in what "maple flavored" means on a syrup label.
How maple syrup is different
Maple syrup has its own federal standard, and it's much shorter. Maple syrup is made by concentrating and heating the sap of maple trees. It has to be at least 66 percent solids by weight, and those solids have to come only from the sap.
The standard allows three optional extras: salt, chemical preservatives and defoaming agents. Salt or a preservative has to show up in an ingredient list. A defoaming agent usually doesn't need to. Pure maple syrup with nothing added is a single-ingredient food, so it doesn't have to carry a list at all, and if it has one, the list names only maple syrup.
That's what is in our tins. Our product pages list one ingredient, "100% pure Vermont maple syrup," and it comes from a single forest and is boiled over a wood-burning fire.
A quick side by side
Pure maple syrup
- All of its sugar comes from maple sap
- At least 66 percent solids
- Three permitted extras: salt, preservatives and defoaming agents
- Sold as maple syrup, with a grade
Pancake syrup
- Made from one or more sweeteners, generally corn syrup
- At least 65 percent sweetener solids
- Flavors, colors, thickeners and preservatives are allowed
- Sold as table, pancake or waffle syrup
To check a bottle in the store, read the name first and then the ingredients, and our guide to reading a maple syrup label walks through the rest.
If you grew up with pancake syrup, there's nothing wrong with liking it. Want to taste the difference? Amber is warm and smooth with caramel notes, and it's the one that goes on everything.
