This way you'll never wonder when to use a certain kind of sugar and question whether you can substitute something. In other words, your desserts will be perfect, which means life will be worth living. To understand the basic distinctions between the different types of sugar, you must first understand how sugar is made. The sugar we use as sweetener comes from juice extracted from plants that naturally have a high amount of sugar: sugar beets and sugarcane.
The juice is purified and filtered, then boiled down and crystallized. A byproduct of the crystallization process is the liquid sugar we call molasses.
To separate the crystals from the liquid, the sugar is put in a centrifuge. The result is basically raw sugar with a light brown tint , which is further refined by clarification using chemicals to bleach the color. Now you have white refined sugar, or the granulated sugar you buy at the grocery store. Regular granulated white sugar isn't the only type of sugar that's made in this process.
First comes the byproduct of molasses, which is great for baking. After that, other sugars in varying shades from light brown to very dark brown are made before you get highly processed white sugar.
Here's your guide to seven types of sugar that you should know about, if you claim to be a serious sweet tooth like us:.
Note: We're only focusing on types of solid sugar here -- no liquids, like molasses. See here if you're curious about what molasses really is. Want to read more from HuffPost Taste? Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest and Tumblr. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism.
Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. All rights reserved. Granulated Sugar.
What it is: This is the stuff most people think of when they think of "sugar. It's also called table or refined sugar. What it's best for: Baking and sweetening beverages. This is your all-purpose sugar. Similar to dragees are sugar pearls. Pearls come in a variety of colors and have a pearlescent sheen.
The most common ones looking like, well, pearls. This is one of my favorite decorative sugars. Remember those? Nonpareils are smaller than sugar pearls and not pearlescent. I always just thought these were called sprinkles. Jimmies are thin, cylinder shaped sugars. Great for topping ice cream and for making confetti cut-out cookies.
Stars, teddy bears, holly leaves, hearts, snowflakes—those are just a few of the sugar sequins living on my sprinkle shelf. Superfine sugar is generally used in making delicate or smooth desserts such as mousse, meringues or puddings. Turbinado sugar is raw sugar that has only had the surface molasses washed off. It is light in color, usually has a large crystal, and is slightly lower in calories than white sugar due to the moisture content.
Muscovado sugar is very dark brown in color and has more molasses than light or dark brown sugar. The sugar crystals are a little larger than regular brown sugar and the texture is stickier. Demerara sugar is another type of sugar that is very popular in England. In the U. Demerara sugar is great in tea, coffee, dissolved into hot cereals or sprinkled onto baked goods.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Would it make a difference if I used caster sugar instead of granulated sugar to make a basic cake? I think it would be totally fine, Caroline. Caster sugar just has finer granules than typical granulated sugar does. Hope this helps. I used walmart brand sugar in my carrot cake today, it seems coarser than usual. My cake had a square spot on the top in the middle that looked like brown sugar.
It's never done that before. Any ideas? In a pinch, if a recipe calls for caster sugar, and you only have granulated sugar, you can put granulated sugar in a food processor and make your own! But you must be careful
0コメント