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By: Wodin Tiw
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I recently purchased a bottle of Cheddar Cheese flavouring (product link here) hoping to use it in pasta. The product description says it is apt for pasta. However, it has a strong sweetish smell which feels very unpleasant. What can be the reason for it?
Propylene glycol is the first ingredient, and that ingredient has a notably sweet taste. It has a wide range of uses: from food (like your cheese flavoring product), to eye drops/artificial tears, to antifreeze.
Due to the sweet-ish taste, you'll probably need to counter that by adding some offsetting tastes to balance it out. Both salt and acid (like lemon juice) can help balance out sweetness, but you're definitely right to think that using it by itself will add sweetness