Different Kinds of Sugar

Ellyn

Ellyn

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It seems that there are two main sorts of brown sugar: one where the molasses is naturally present and has yet to be refined, and another where molasses is added to white refined sugar (for some strange reason). Both of those take a long time to melt because the granules are crystallized, although in the latter case the brown molasses just washes off.

When it comes to muscovado sugar, or coconut sugar, these are brown sugars are melt almost right away and come with a distinctive woodsy flavoring.

Caster sugar is granulated sugar that is usually white and refined, and is characterized by how much more easily it melts into any mix.

Confectionary sugar is ground to a powder and usually used to top pastries to add an airy and light bit of sweetness to an otherwise tart or oily pastry.

My research (meaning, in this case, Google and Wikipedia) doesn't indicate that it matters if these forms of sugar come from beets or canes, although of course coconut sugar either comes from coconut or involves coconut somewhere in its process and it's characterized by a low glycemic index that makes this particular sugar more suitable for diabetics.

As one episode of Top Chef taught me, you can't always replace sugar with Splenda--the culinary chemistry can turn out very wrong, so Splenda-substituted cookies might not set properly, especially Splenda-substituted meringues.
 
You have missed out one of the major fundamental difference in sugar. It's origin.
Beet sugar and cane sugar are two totally different ball games (they are the majority of the source of sugar) but there is palm sugar and various others to boot.

A lot of sugar is beet sugar - derived from sugar beet which can be grown easily in colder climates. It is very highly processed simply because of what is needed to extract the sugar from the root itself. Beet sugar will not have the same nice treacly taste as cane sugar because of this fundamental difference - sugar beet contains a high concentration of sucrose. Something like 7.5 million tonnes of sugar beet is grown in the UK (alone) annually.
This article (http://www.sucrose.com/lbeet.html) covers the basics of extracting sugar from sugar beet roots. What it does not mention is what chemicals are used to extract it, and some of them are pretty unpleasant! I suspect that this is the source of your "white sugar with molasses added".

In the UK we have a number of other sugar options (this is not a comprehensive list, just what I can come up with off the top of my head!)
  • icing sugar (very fine powder) - white
  • caster sugar (very fine crystals) - white or golden
  • granulated sugar (fine crystals) - white or golden
  • Demerara sugar (coarse crystals) - brown
  • preserving sugar (granulated with added pectin) - white
  • (coffee sugar (really large crystals and a lot less common)) - brown
  • light soft brown sugar
  • dark soft brown sugar
  • light muscovado sugar
  • dark muscovado sugar (also known as Barbados sugar)
 
Icing sugar usually contains corn starch in addition to the sugar. This can make it behave very differently than other sugars when cooked. Heating it can denature the starch and make it lumpy or thick like a gravy depending on how it is treated.

Coconut sugar is mainly sucrose (basic table sugar) which is usually sourced from beets or cane. The low GI that is reported is subject to debate because the tests had more than one variable and it is unclear if the sugar or the foods were low GI. Dextrose (from corn) is another sugar that is usually ground fine like icing sugar but it is more difficult for our bodies to digest. This means that it isn't absorbed as rapidly and has a naturally lower GI.

Splenda is a bit of a frankensugar in that 4 hydrogen atoms have been removed and replaced with chlorine atoms making it difficult to absorb. It is safe, as far as we know, as long as it isn't subject to high temperatures. If overheated it, like any other sugar, will change its molecular structure but unlike true sugar it will produce chlorine compounds.
 
Wow, I never thought to research out sugar and all its varying kind. You've all done a great job in breaking down the variations and what it does and its better purpose. I joke with my husband calling his Equal fake compared to my regular sugar.
 
Lostvalleyguy said:
Dextrose (from corn) is another sugar that is usually ground fine like icing sugar but it is more difficult for our bodies to digest. This means that it isn't absorbed as rapidly and has a naturally lower GI.
Click to expand...

That's odd and interesting, because I thought dextrose was the sugar that hospitals put in drips that go straight into patient's veins when they were crashing or otherwise dangerously ill... if the body has difficulty digesting that, it would be a bad thing to put in a body that needed a sugar boost right?
 
Lostvalleyguy said:
Dextrose (from corn) is another sugar that is usually ground fine like icing sugar but it is more difficult for our bodies to digest. This means that it isn't absorbed as rapidly and has a naturally lower GI.
Click to expand...

Dextrose is another name for glucose (well at least the naturally occuring D- enantiomer). Given that it is a monosaccaride I'm not entirely sure why it would be more difficult to absorb than say sucrose (regular table sugar) which would need to be hydrolyzed by pancreatic and intestinal glycosidases before absorbtion.
 
I can recommend muscovado. It is unrefined cane sugar that retains a high mineral content, so it's nutritious. It can also be used as a glaze for baked ham, for barbeque ribs and in some stirfry recipes.

Muscovado is great for making pumpkin pie and can be used to make sticky cakes, muffins and desserts.
 
Back to dextrose for a moment: I thought I had blundered and had gotten myself all mixed up. Dextrose is a different form of glucose (right handed rather than left). Isomers for the chemists in here. The slightly different structure does make it more difficult for our digestive system making it take longer to absorb. If the hospitals are using it as a drip, it is bypassing the digestive system and directly increasing the body's blood sugar levels.

On a similar note: Fiber is extremely similar to starch but because it is connected slightly differently, our bodies are unable to break it down. We probably don't have enough of the right enzymes in our digestive system for dextrose.
 
The different kind of sugars mentioned above are very informative... but what we are using at home is brown sugar which they said is better to use than white sugar,
 
Lostvalleyguy said:
Back to dextrose for a moment: I thought I had blundered and had gotten myself all mixed up. Dextrose is a different form of glucose (right handed rather than left). Isomers for the chemists in here. The slightly different structure does make it more difficult for our digestive system making it take longer to absorb. If the hospitals are using it as a drip, it is bypassing the digestive system and directly increasing the body's blood sugar levels.

On a similar note: Fiber is extremely similar to starch but because it is connected slightly differently, our bodies are unable to break it down. We probably don't have enough of the right enzymes in our digestive system for dextrose.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but there are a few misconceptions here.

Dextrose is D-gluose, the naturally-occurring form of glucose. It is a monosaccharide, so does not need to be digested and is readily absorbed in the small intestine by cotransport with sodium. In contrast to this, table sugar is a disaccharide comprising a glucose and a fructose molecule. Sucrose cannot be absorbed (it cannot cross cell membranes unaided and there are no transporters for it) so needs to be digested into the component monosaccharides prior to absorption. Starch is polymeric glucose and needs to be digested first into the disaccharide maltose by amylase enzymes and then into glucose monosaccharide which can then be absorbed.

"Fiber" by the way describes a relatively heterogenous set of substances.
 
Whoa, I didn't know there were lots of varieties of sugar o_o

What we usually use at home is brown sugar (muscovado, mostly), since we've read that white (confectionary, right?) isn't always that healthy. But I didn't know there were other varieties as well.
 
I'm pretty sure that confectionary sugar is the finely-ground powdered sugar, like you find on the outside of some donuts that are sweet but not hard and grainy.

White sugar can be powdered/confectionary, or granulated :) (Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
 
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