Ingredient: Sugars General
Category: Sugars & Syrups
Season: All
White refined sugar has become the most common form of sugar in North America as well as in Europe.
Refined sugar can be made by dissolving raw sugar and purifying it with a phosphoric acid, method similar to that used for blanco directo, a carbonatation process involving calcium hydroxide and carbon dioxide, or by various filtration strategies.
It is then further purified by filtration through a bed of activated carbon or bone char, depending on where the processing takes place.
Beet sugar refineries produce refined white sugar directly without an intermediate raw stage.
White refined sugar is typically sold as granulated sugar, which has been dried to prevent clumping
In culinary terms, the foodstuff known as sugar, delivers a primary taste sensation of sweetness.
Apart from the many forms of sugar and of sugar-containing foodstuffs, alternative non-sugar-based sweeteners exist, and these particularly attract interest from people who have problems with their blood-sugar level (such as diabetics) and people who wish to limit their calorie-intake while still enjoying sweet foods.
Both natural and synthetic substitutes exist with no significant carbohydrate (and thus low-calorie) content: for instance stevia (a herb), and saccharin (produced from naturally occurring but not necessarily naturally edible substances by inducing appropriate chemical reactions).
Culinary sugars:
Granulated sugar comes in various crystal sizes, for home and industrial use, depending on the application: |
Coarse-grained sugars, such as sanding sugar (also called "pearl sugar", "decorating sugar", nibbed sugar or sugar nibs) adds "sparkle" and flavour for decorating to baked goods, candies, cookies/biscuits and other desserts.
The sparkling effect occurs because the sugar forms large crystals which reflect light.
Sanding sugar, a large-crystal sugar, serves for making edible decorations. It has larger granules that sparkle when sprinkled on baked goods and candies and will not dissolve when subjected to heat. |
Normal granulated sugars for table use: typically they have a grain size about 0.5 mm across |
Finer grades result from selectively sieving the granulated sugar: |
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Caster (or castor) (0.35 mm), commonly used in baking |
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Superfine sugar, also called baker's sugar, berry sugar, or bar sugar, favoured for sweetening drinks or for preparing meringue |
Finest grades |
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Powdered sugar, 10X sugar, confectioner's sugar (0.060 mm), or icing sugar (0.024 mm), produced by grinding sugar to a fine powder.
The manufacturer may add a small amount of anti-caking agent to prevent clumping, either cornstarch (1% to 3%) or tri-calcium phosphate. |
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