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While cooking something sweet which would be served cold or at room-temperature, is it more sweet when it is hot i.e. during the cooking when you taste in order to check the sweetness, or when it is served cold or at room-temperature i.e. after the cooking?

I feel that it tastes slightly less sweet when served at a lower temperature. Is that right?

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    it depends on the sweetener. I remember seeing the curves for cold food (especially soft drinks in the 0-15 celsius range) and corn syrup is much sweeter in that range than sugar, while it gets equal at room temps. But I find your question very interesting for the higher ranges. – rumtscho♦ Jan 14 '14 at 19:43
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Sweetness is perceived in inverse relation to temperature, so what you say is quite correct. Further along the same range, ice cream or sorbet tastes much less sweet when frozen than when you taste the initial base.

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  • But cheap American beer tastes much sweeter when it's warm than when it's cold. I think it's more complicated. – Pointy Jan 16 '14 at 22:59
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    I think we are in violent agreement - colder == less sweet, warmer == more sweet. – Michael Natkin Jan 17 '14 at 23:38
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    Oh durr. I think I did one too many "inverses" while thinking about what you wrote :) – Pointy Jan 18 '14 at 0:37

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