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Sugar: Sorting Through the Sweet Terms  |
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 Continuing our series on defining the various terms associated with food products, sugar is another one full of them.
Plainly speaking, the sugar we’re referring to is the edible white crystals we buy for baking and sweetening our food and beverages. Sugar is sucrose, a part of a plant that when the plant is processed, the sucrose becomes a white crystallized substance. Sucrose is common in many plants including fruits and vegetables, as it’s a byproduct of photosynthesis, but sugarcane and sugar beets are the two plants that contain a larger percentage of sucrose. Sugarcane and sugar beets are grown worldwide in large quantities to produce the world’s supply of sugar.
Sugarcane vs. Sugar Beets
The sugar produced from sugarcane and sugar beets doesn’t differ except its source and sugar from sugarcane is used more than sugar from sugar beets. The only way you’ll know the difference was what the packaging says when you buy sugar. The same kind of sugar products are made from both sugarcane and sugar beets.
Refined Sugar
Refined sugar means white processed sugar. However, there is a discrepancy here because it implies only white sugar is a processed sugar. In fact, all types of sugar are processed: you can’t get sugar without processing the plant it comes from. Sugarcane and sugar beets are pressed to release their juices. The juices are then heated and spun with water until the solid crystals of sugar remain. To make some types of sugars, the process is varied by including additional ingredients to result in the different sugar products.
There is a rating of fineness for ground sugar granules, from fine to finest they are: XXX, XXXX, 4X, 6X, 8X, 10X, 12X, 14X.
Granulated Sugar
Granulated sugar is the most-often type of sugar bought and used in the home and “granulated” refers to the size of the sugar crystals, which are fine or superfine.
Powdered vs. Confectioners’ Sugar
Today there isn’t a difference between powdered and confectioners’ sugar. Both mean granulated sugar that has been finely ground and three percent cornstarch added to it. The fineness of the sugar allows it to dissolve better and the cornstarch acts not as a thickener when the mixture including the sugar is heated, and also to prolong the shelf life of the sugar. Today’s packaging of this type of sugar has a fineness of 10X.
Originally powdered sugar was finely ground sugar of the size XXX, nothing added. Confectioners’ sugar had a size rating of XXXX and had cornstarch added.
Another term associated with powdered and confectioners’ is Icing Sugar. This is the British term for powdered or confectioners’ sugar.
Castor/Caster and Superfine Sugar
Just like powdered versus confectioners’, there is disagreement with this sugar term. Here it’s how to spell it. Castor sugar is a finely ground sugar but it is not as fine as confectioners’, about a 4X. Castor, or caster, is the term used in Great Britain. In the United States, it’s labeled superfine. Just like with confectioners’ sugar, the finer sugar granules dissolve faster in liquid.
Brown sugar
Brown sugar is made when molasses is added to sugar as it is processed. Molasses is a sweet syrup, brown in color, that is a byproduct of sugar cane and sugar beet juice as it is processed. The amount of molasses added to make brown sugar results in different color grades of brown sugar: light, medium, dark.
Raw Sugar
The term raw sugar implies sugar that is not processed and is therefore healthier to use than refined sugar that, due to processing, has lost nutritional value. The truth is raw sugar is processed. It’s the sugar product left over between removing the molasses and further refining the sugar crystals so the granules are still brown and larger.
Loaf or Cube or Dominoe
Referring to sugar as a loaf, cube or dominoe means sugar has been packed into a small half-inch boxed shape. Water used during the refining process is added to granulated sugar before packing it to help hold the granules together.
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