Cooking with Soda!

Soda? Pop? Coke? Soda-Pop? Whatever the hell you call it (but I'd go with soda), I love cooking with it! The best, and I'd say nearly only way, to use them is to first reduce them into a slight syrup. With this you can add it to sauces, cakes, cookies, etc. However there is a catch. Sodas that use high-fructose corn syrup, when reduced, take almost...chemically, are much thicker, and taste more bland than all-sugar counter parts. The problem with this becomes finding these 'Throwback" sodas. Dr. Pepper is still produced in Dublin, Texas, Mountain Dew has recently come on the market, and the famous Mexican Coca-Cola can be found in most Mexican specialty stores but can also pop up in many places. There's many other varieties out there, like Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi, etc.

I've used soda reductions to flavor cakes, but the Dr. Pepper one I made tasted like sweet cherry not so much Dr. Pepper. Not that it was bad, just not Dr. Peppery. I also love using soda reductions as an ingredient in other sauces, especially sweet berry coulis for desserts.

Wylie Dufresne made this...thing with a Dr. Pepper reduction sauce.

One of the more ingenious ways I've seen them used, but never done myself, is as an ingredient in braises. Combine Coca-Cola with stock, and maybe some wine, and braise away the meat. The soda should add a nice sweetness that is otherwise unreachable in most braises.

I gave up soda recently in hopes of losing weight, gaining whiter teeth, and saving money. But cooking is another thing entirely. Eating my alcohol. Eating my soda. It's how I do.