Category: Baking Ingredients

Turbinado Sugar

Turbinado is a “raw” large-crystal sugar, which is to say it’s made and packed at a sugar mill close to the point of harvest, not at a refinery. It’s a product of the first crystallization that occurs at at mill. Like all crystal sugars it’s spun in a centrifuge to (mostly) rid it of molasses, but it’s the only sugar that I’m aware of that actually takes its name from the machinery (a centrifuge is also called a “turbine”). The processing removes nearly all of the original molasses (turbinado sugar is 98-99% sucrose) but it still has a more interesting flavor than white sugar since that original molasses often contains fresh grassy aromas and flavors from the cane plant. Because turbindo sugar has hints molasses flavor but is still mostly sucrose, it’s frequently used to top crème brûlée where it forms a flavorful — yet still quire hard — crust.

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Brown Sugar (Dark)

“Dark” brown sugars are similar to light brown sugars in that they are refinery sugars, almost always produced by “painting”, i.e. the application of a very dark molasses. Dark brown sugar can contain as little as 85% sucrose. Up to 5% of it can be plant matter and long-chain sugars, and up to 2% various minerals and salts (the rest being water, glucose and fructose). That being the case, it has a similar flavor profile as light brown sugar, except that those flavors are stronger and are supplemented by bitter and even licorice notes. Its higher acetic acid content can make is almost tangy and/or vinegar-y tasting.

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Brown Sugar (Light)

Mass-market American brown sugar is a refinery sugar, made by re-melting and re-crystallizing the sugar supplied by the original sugar miller. It may simply be a more uniform version of the raw sugar with its original molasses still on it. Alternately, it may be a white table sugar that has been “painted” with molasses. Either way, it’s a “wetter”, softer and denser sugar than most “raw” brown sugars. These brown sugars are about 90% sucrose, the remainder being glucose and fructose, minerals (including salts), water, begasse (browned bits of the sugarcane plant) and longer-chain sugars that don’t taste especially sweet on our tongues. All these combine to give brown sugar a variety of buttery, salty and caramel-like notes. Brown sugar is an acidic ingredient as the molasses it contains is high in acetic acid (which can give it some vinegar-like aromas as well).

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Powdered Sugar

Powdered sugar has the smallest crystal size of any of the white sugars, as small as 0.01 millimeters. It’s also known as “confectioner’s” or “icing” sugar depending on where you live. The tiny crystals make it good for dusting and of course making frostings and icings. The only major drawback to powdered sugar is its flavor and texture which can be chalky. The reason for that is because powdered sugar contains up to about 3% corn starch which is there to absorb moisture and keep the tiny crystals from clumping.

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Superfine Sugar

Known as “caster” sugar in much of the rest of the English-speaking world, the only real difference between this and standard table sugar is the particle size (about 0.2 millimeters). The smaller size means it has more surface area, so many bakers prefer it for creaming applications, where sugar is beaten with butter to create lots and lots of tiny holes (which will go on to become gas- and steam-trapping bubbles). Since smaller crystals melt faster, it’s often preferred for mousses and meringues. Added to cake batters it disperses in smaller pockets and can create a lighter crumb.

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Table Sugar

What can I say? It’s the standard in much of the world. A medium-small crystal size (about 0.5 millimeters), this sugar is made from very pure (over 99%) sucrose so as to be free of non-sucrose flavors or colors. White table sugar can be made from sugarcane or beets, with cane sugar being preferred for baking and especially candy making. Vegan versions are made the same way as standard, save for the fact that they aren’t passed through charcoal filters, which contain bone meal. See below for more about how standard table sugar is made.

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How Sugar is Made

How “Raw” Sugar is Made

I find “raw” to be a pretty weird term for sugar, since all table sugars are “cooked” in a sense — boiled or heated to evaporate moisture. After that it’s mostly a matter of removing the “non-sugar” substances. But as usual I’m ahead of myself.

Sugar processing, as I mentioned below, starts by harvesting, washing and pulping the sugarcane. At that point the cane is pressed to remove the sucrose-heavy juice. The next step is to heat the juice to remove the moisture. Traditionally this was done by boiling, but since long-term boiling is both fuel-intensive and can destroy some of the flavors in the by-products (i.e. the molasses), most cane juice these days is “cooked” in vacuum pans which get the job done at a lower temperature. After many hours the juice turns thick and brown as the residual plant bits brown and some of the non-sucrose sugars caramelize. The finished product is a thick, very low moisture liquid called “dark brown” syrup.

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Corn Meal is Corn Meal

Not! I may be blasé about the differences between cane sugar and beet sugar, between high-end grand cru chocolates and the chocolates you can buy at the supermarket, but when it comes to corn meal I get animated. Simply put, you need the best quality stuff you can find. And when I say “best quality” I mean stone ground, ideally from an old-school grist mill of the kind you find in national parks and those historic restoration villages.

Why am I so particular about corn meal? Because there’s no corn meal like fresh meal ground slowly between stones from whole kernels of dried corn. Though you may not realize it, the corn meal you find in supermarket packages is not only stale, it’s ground from only the endosperm of the kernel, the oily germ having been pinched off by steel rollers.

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White Wheat Flour

White wheat flour has only been getting attention for few years in the States. It is, quite simply, a white strain of wheat which when milled yields a whole wheat flour that’s far paler than traditional whole wheat flour. Historically, American agriculture has produced two basic strains of wheat: hard red wheat and soft red […]

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